Gihren's Greed: Cosmic Crusade
by Kaiser Chris
Summary: April 1st, Year 70 CE. For six weeks, war has existed between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT. The Alliance is split over how to achieve victory, while ZAFT is hours away from crippling Earth. Everything will change when the Principality of Zeon, moments after declaring independence, is thrust into the Cosmic Era. Humanity's next age shall be born from the legacy of Gihren's Greed.
1. Independence

**October 1st, UC 0078. Parliament. Zum City, Side 3. Principality of Zeon. Third Person POV**

"The history of the present regime of the Earth Federation is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Colonies. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The Federation as refused their Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

The Federation has forbidden the Sides to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till their Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they have utterly neglected to attend to them.

The Federation has refused to grant the Sides neither sovereignty nor representation, denying our right to of citizenship and establishing an elite oligarchy to have total control over the many.

The Federation maintains complete apathy to the wellbeing of their citizens after their exile, abandoning the colonies in poverty, with the national colonies of the Sides existing solely for exploitation.

The Federation..."

For the next several minutes, Prime Minister Gihren Zabi continued on his rant towards the injustice and tyranny of the Earth Federation. Reading from the Zeon Declaration of Independence, he stated the justifications of the Principality for its secession from the Federation, and the list of grievances that the Federation inflicted on the Sides, in particular Side 3. With each word, Gihren held the unwavering focus of not only the Parliamentarians assembled before him, but the hundreds of millions of citizens of Zeon who were glued to their monitors in order to watch the address. Billions more around the Earth Sphere were also watching, minutes away before viewing the most important moment in two human histories.

Seated a couple of meters behind Gihren, high on his grand throne, sat the most powerful man within Zeon, if not all of space. He was a largely obese man with a bald head, sporting a pair of shades sans arms, and an elaborate maroon uniform with an accompanying cape of black and gold. While a comical appearance to the unaware person, those who stood within the presence of this man would notice nothing other than a radiant aura of power and will. This man was Degwin Sodo Zabi, Sovereign of the Principality of Zeon.

Sitting regally on his throne, Degwin looked on at his eldest son and presumptive heir with a neutral expression of content. The shades on his glasses allowed his eyes to freely wonder around without anyone noticing. Degwin observed all those within the chamber, only stopping his search after being satisfied with everyone paying close attention to Gihren's speech, a mixture of awe and excitement on their faces, the primary effect that the Zabis had desired when crafting up this performance.

For the Declaration, they chose to model it off of the American Declaration of Independence, but with some major edits with the elimination of Christian references and a rewording to fit the situation of Zeon. It was a popular idea within the Social Democratic Spacenoid Party, the ruling monopolistic party of Side 3, to have their declaration be copied off of America's to send a strong statement. The United States was the first nation within the Americas to tear off the yoke of Imperialism in the Colonial Age, and Zeon would do the same, leading the charge for all Spacenoids to rise up against the tyrannical Earth Federation.

At first, Gihren had scoffed at the notion, as he had hoped to have his own personal Declaration created to add to his legacy as one of the core Founding Fathers of the Principality, and so he could use his time at the podium to make a grand historical speech that would be cataloged for centuries. Unfortunately for Gihren, Degwin was largely supportive of the idea, so he had to relent. What little grievances Gihren had with the speech were completely eliminated when he started speaking. His natural talents were kicked into action, and he swiftly captivated all those who stood before him.

Besides, this minor trifle was of little consequence to Gihren in the long run. In the coming months, he would seek to enact his plans into motion and to shape humanity in his vision. When Degwin died and Gihren rose to become Sovereign, he would finalize his legacy, one which would last for millennia.

Unfortunately, these plans had given discomfort to the one man who Gihren needed to make most of them succeed, his father Degwin. When it came to Gihren, Degwin loved his eldest as he did all of his children. Yet even he had to admit that there was something disturbing about his son. While Gihren had a unique gift that could rally billions to his side and enact grand plans to revolutionize the Earth Sphere, this same gift could just as easily be twisted by the man that wielded it, twisted into many horrors. If everything that Gihren had hoped for would come true, then half of humanity would be dead in the greatest war in human history. When Gihren became Sovereign, there would be nothing to stop him from shaping Side 3, or humanity, into his very image.

Yet, as much as Degwin hated to admit it, Gihren's vision and machinations were one of the few ways that Zeon could ever hope to achieve victory. Gihren had been instrumental in uplifting Zeon to become an economic and industrial powerhouse in the Sides, reforming the military to become a force that would surpass the Federal Forces when they met on the battlefield. As heinous as Gihren's plan was, it was the only sure method for total victory as it would cripple the Federal war machine and make Earth powerless before the Zeon Armada, allowing the Principality to dictate whatever terms that they wanted. If the Principality failed, even if it were to use more benevolent methods, then the punishment would be extreme with Zeon's quest for independence being the justification for brutal reprisals that would make the past half century of oppression look like a paradise of liberty.

This was why, with extreme reluctance, Degwin had let Gihren take charge of the planning for war, letting his vision become Zeon's sole strategy for Independence. There was still hope, that perhaps the Federation would bend over and allow Zeon to secede with complete sovereignty, but Degwin knew this was a total falsehood. If Earth allowed Zeon to walk away, then it would be a free pass for the rest of their Sides to secede. This would cripple the Earthnoid economy and destroy the Federation as its member-states would soon fight to regain their sovereignty, undoing eight decades of their authoritarian empire over space, and leaving Earth powerless before the dominant and vengeful Sides. As such, war was the only possible solution to this scenario.

Wanting to take his thoughts of the plans that Gihren had prepared, Degwin shifted his head slightly and looked towards a balcony in the center of the hall. Sitting on the front row of said balcony were his two youngest children, Kycillia and Garma Zabi. Kycillia sat with a satisfied expression, air of power surrounded around her similar to her father and Gihren. On her right was the youngest member of Zeon's royal dynasty, Garma Zabi. Garma's usual aura of grace and dignity was gone at the moment as he sat on the edge of his seat with his arm tightly curled around the rails. Unlike Kycillia who was merely satisfied with what was taking place, Garma was entranced by Gihren's speech, the fires of Nationalism and his pride as a prince of the new nation overwhelming him.

Seeing his two children warmed Degwin's heart, though at the same time he was also saddened due to the absence of his second son, Dozle. At the moment Dozle was stationed at the Solomon Base in L5, leading the 2nd Space Fleet. With Dozle at Solomon, he could lead a pre-emptive strike against Sides 1 and 4 in case the Federation decided to immedeatly retaliate Zeon's call for independence. Dozle was not the only Zabi who was absent, with Degwin's first and second wife, along with his secondborn son Sasro, having died many years ago due to tragic circumstances.  
_  
'Alice, Naliss, Sasro. I hope you are watching what is taking place, your children and siblings are making history. I would have done anything to have you at my side today.'_ Degwin thought with great sorrow.

Degwin focused his gaze on Kycillia and Garma once more, with his only daughter noticing in return, Kycillia offered a rare smile in return to her beloved father, causing Degwin's mood to rise again.  
_  
'I won't be long for this world, so do your best to aid your brother when he ascends to the throne. If you keep his ambitions in check, I'm sure that Zeon will rise to great heights.'_

"-We, therefore, the Representatives of the Principality of Zeon, within the National Legislature, Assembled, appealing to our right of Sovereignty, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and an Independent Nation; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the planet Earth, and that all political connection between them and the State of the Earth Federation, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Nation, we have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. SIEG ZEON!" Gihren finished, raising his arm in a righteous declaration with everyone within the chambers following suit.

"SIEG ZEON!"

"SIEG ZEON!"

"SIEG ZEON!"

These two words were echoed continuously by hundreds of millions across the Principality, a thunderous roar which completely overwhelmed all of the colonies within Side 3. For a couple of minutes this cheering went on, until the crowd's throats began to soar and silence soon filled the chambers, and the rest of the nation once more.

Grabbing the Declaration in his hands, Gihren turned around and walked towards the direction of his father, ascending a small flight of stairs, and kneeling before the throne with his head low. "I now present this Declaration of Independence before our rightful Sovereign. With his signing, the Principality's sovereignty shall become law, and we shall be free of the shackles of the Earth's gravity!" Gihren boldly proclaimed. He lifted his head slightly, allowing Degwin to gaze into his eyes, his soul seemingly consumed with greed and a lust for power.

Degwin rose from his throne, and moved to his son. Taking the Declaration in hand, Degwin moved to the central podium which Gihren had used to speak just seconds ago. Degwin rested the Declaration on the podium, at the same time moving his right hand to grab and hold onto a pen. Degwin rose his pen high, then struck the document in a large and elaborate motion, signing his name in a grand John Handcock.

As Degwin was putting down his signature, the entire chamber, and indeed almost all of the nation, sat still in a silent and abated breath. In a couple of seconds, though what had seemed like an eternity to those gazing upon the spectacle, Degwin had signed the Declaration. After he was finished, Degwin put down the pen and held the Declaration up high for the audience and camera to follow.

"With this signing, I declare the Principality of Zeon and its citizens to be forever independent and free, from now until the end of time! SIEG ZEON!" Degwin bellowed

"SIE-" The chant that was about to rise on the lips of the audience grew deathly silent as everyone in attendance suddenly observed an unexplainable and otherwordly phenomena. All around them a bright and shining light started glowing the instant Degwin had finished his declaration. Despite not having any possible source, the light continued to grow in intensity, growing almost as strong as the sun. Several people had to shield their eyes, while a few hollered out in pain, their souls put under immense pressure by what was taking place.

Up on the podium, Degwin had dropped the Declaration on the podium and began to cover his eyes. He took off his glasses, trying to see if it was an illusion, only finding it to be complete reality. Offput by the brightness with his weak eyes, Degwin stumbled backwards and fell on the floor. He could feel a strong pressure on his shoulder with the presence of a hand.

"Father!"

This would be the last thing that Degwin would hear his entire world was consumed by light, with him momentarily falling into unconsciousness, darkness taking over him.

This would be the last moment that Degwin Sodo Zabi, or the Principality of Zeon, would exist within the Universal Century. After a single second, Side 3 was no more.

**October 1st, UC 0070. Solomon. Lagrange 5. Third Person POV.**  
_  
"The history of the present regime of the Earth Federation is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Colonies. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world..."_

Within the command center of the asteroid base Solomon, all the officers currently present were seated with their eyes glued to the main screen. While the screen would usually provide a view of the surrounding space from Solomon's multiple cameras, for this special occasion the feed was replaced by the ongoing news broadcasts that were focused on the Signing of the Declaration. Normally, such a grand event would take place in the vast and grand assembly hall within Solomon, created for hosting grandiose events such as award ceremonies and hosting visiting dignitaries. However, due to the nature of the ongoing event with the possible threat of instant retaliation from the Federal Forces, everyone within Solomon and the stationed 2nd Fleet was instead stationed at their on-duty post. As a concession to the excited sailors and marines who wanted to witness history in the making, most were allowed to view the Signing through some sort of electronic device if they were not pre-occupied with a critical role. This was a compromise so that the men and women of the fleet could bear witness to this birth of their nation, yet at the same time still be ready to respond if the Federal Fleet decided to move.

Fortunately the Federal Fleet had remained on standby at the moment. Within Jaburo there was a flurry of debate on whether or not they should launch a pre-emptive strike or wait for the situation to develop, with similar debates occurring within the Federal Assembly, calls for diplomacy and war being made on all sides of the political spectrum.

Of all the officers watching the Signing, none were as proud as Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, commander of the 2nd Fleet and the current ruler of Solomon.

Seated on the Garrison CO chair within the command center, Dozle viewed the proceedings with glee as his brother was listing out the grievances that the Federation inflicted upon Zeon. At long last, after years of service to his nation, Dozle would bear witness to history as his people would tear off the shackles of gravity and chart out their own course for life, with Zeon to soon set an example for the rest of the Earth to follow as Deikun's vision of the enlightened age of the Newtype.

_'Everything is coming to fruition. Father shall act as Zeon's shepherd, Gihren it's prophet, Kycillia the cloak and dagger, Garma the valiant Knight, and I shall be the Iron Fist who shall destroy all of our enemies who dare stand to violate our independence.'_ Thought Dozle, jubilant at seeing his families plans, a decade in the making, finally become reality.

"So...it's finally happening." Whispered in a low voice to Dozle's right, Zenna Zabi, the sole member of the Zabi dynasty who married into the family and was not of Degwin's direct descent. As a Captain of the Space Force, Zenna had been stationed at Solomon as Head of Logistics for the Base, with her duties also covering the refueling and resupply of all fleets either stationed or in transit at Solomon. Hypothetically, Zenna had several officers that were above her in the command chain in Solomon, including Admiral Halsey of the 2nd Fleet. However, thanks to her marriage to Dozle and status as a Princess of Zeon, she was De Facto 2nd in command at Solomon, with many of Dozle's own decisions being influenced by the input of his wife.

Dozle took his focus off of the screen and looked towards his beloved. Zenna sat with a perfect posture and her body rigid in movement. Her facial expression was one of joy, though her eyes were wrought with concern and nervousness, betraying her perfect and regal stance.

Concerned, Dozle leaned his body slightly, shifting it into a thirty-degree angle so he could place his full potential on Zenna. "Are you concerned about the retaliation?" Dozle asked in a voice that was hushed and as low as he could produce. It wouldn't do after all to have their subordinates see concern or worry within members of the Zabi family.

Zenna slightly shook her head, then looked towards her husband, speaking in an equally low voice. "It's not that, I know that with the usage of Zakus and Minovsky particles, it's going to be impossible for the Federal Fleets to produce any kind of real damage unless nukes are involved. I know we'll win; it's _how_ we'll win that concerns me." Zenna said.

Zenna's emphasis on the planned tactics of the Zeon Space Force let Dozle understand his wife's fears, that of the horrors that Gihren would unleash if his plans were used in their entirety.

The planned nuking and gassing of Sides 1, 2, and 4 at the start of 0079 if the Federation did not accept Zeon's independence, known as _Operation Prussian_, was the blitzkrieg strategy developed by Gihren Zabi with the intent of crippling the Federation's presence in space. With Sides 1 and 2 gone, the Federation would lose their industrial centers and half of the loyalist Spacenoid population, the addition of Side 4 removing their presence in Lagrange 5. It was hoped that after enduring such a brutal attack with an annihilation of the Space Force, the Federation would have to come to terms and give Zeon complete independence with additional economic concessions that would strengthen Zeon for the next two generations. It would be a brilliant plan on paper, if one were to overlook the sheer holocaust from the lives lost.

When it came to his own thoughts on the plans, Dozle was not comfortable with it. While he understood the necessity of strategic nuclear strikes to cripple the Federation's industry, as a strategic nuclear campaign had been the key to NATO's victory over the Warsaw Pact in WWIII and India over Pakistan in the Fourth Indo-Pakistani War; the scale of destruction chosen by Gihren was completely over-proportional. Only a third of the cost would be necessary to give Zeon the comparative advantage, and with the Zaku Dozle was confident that Zeon would obliterate the Federation in conventional warfare. There was also the uncomfortable fact that Zeon would be firing on the Spacenoids that they were supposed to liberate from the Federation. In Dozle's mind, why should Zeon be killing those who were equally oppressed for decades when the oligarchic Earthnoids would come out of the war relatively unscathed?

For now there was a brief period of time for _Operation Prussian_ to be edited in the coming weeks if the Federation did not launch an immediate attack. By the end of October, if there were no changes, then Prussian would have to be carried out in its entirety so that the various fleets could carry out their orders without any unclear objectives or contradictions. Dozle hoped that he could use this time to persuade his brother to change Prussian into a limited version that focused on the control of the moon, total elimination of military industry, and the isolation of Earth from the colonies. Dozle knew however that it would be an extremely uphill battle, once Gihren had set his mind to something, nothing short of a miracle could change it.

Wanting to comfort his wife, Dozle took Zenna's left hand with his right, and firmly grasped it, his titanic palm completely covering her hand. The small electric spark from the contact brought an excited chill to Zenna's body, while she also smiled from the small gesture by Dozle.

"I feel the same way that you do my love. As despicable as it is, _Prussian_ is our best hope for total victory. If we don't kill the Federation in the first wave, then they'll use Earth's resources to rebuild and destroy the Principality. I'll try to ask Father if he can change Gihren's mind, but I have to do my duty no matter what. Victory is our only option, and I'll do whatever is necessary for the Principality to emerge strong and victorious, I owe it to every man and woman who served under me. Not only that, but I need to fight for our future. I want our children to grow up in a nation where every Spacenoid can live good lives of liberty and happiness. In order to do that we must achieve victory at any cost. If I am to become a demon in the eyes of Earth, then so be it. I'll give anything, even my life, if it's in return for the freedom of my people."

"Dozle." Zenna said softly, tears threatening to form in her eyes. Out of all of Dozle's traits, his selflessness was both his greatest strength, and his weakness. For while it made Dozle a leader who would never take any action unless he knew it was for the good of those who served under him, it also made him incredibly ignorant to his own well-being and desires. It was a character that arose thanks to years of servitude to his family and their accumulation of power, always willing to play the loyal pawn while his elder brother Gihren and his exceptionally gifted younger siblings would reap glory in the spotlight.

"Dozle, any victory is meaningless if you don't survive to the end. I want you to grow old with me, us passing on surrounded by countless grandchildren, not blown away in a destroyed zaku in space." Zenna said, silently pleading for her husband to just once put his needs above others.

Completely understanding the worries of his wife, Dozle leaned to his right, and gave a soft kiss to Zenna, comforting the blonde Zabi. "Every time I go out in fight, I shall do so in order to return to you. When the Principality gains its independence, I'll take a leave of absence from the Space Force so we can focus on building a family. I want to grow old with you as well. First, I must finish my duty. I owe to much to the people of Zeon to leave them in their darkest hour."

Knowing that her husband had at least enough self-preservation to try and come back to her instead of needlessly risking his life for the good of the nation, Zenna relented, knowing that at the very least he would attempt to convince Gihren to either pursue peace first or go for a more limited war, no matter how low the success would be in that regard. The two Zabis shared another kiss, then redirected their attention to Gihren's continued speech.

Fortunately the Zabi's heart-to-heart had gone relatively unnoticed by most of the Command Center, everyone being thoroughly engrossed by Gihren's speech. The only one who had paid any attention to the exchange was Shin Matsunaga, Dozle's personal bodyguard and best friend, who had watched the exchange silently a few meters behind. Much to Shin's dismay, it seemed that his fellow Royal Guard, Anavel Gato, had not noticed the conversation at all. Instead, his attention was glued to the main screen where he was mesmerized by Gihren saying the Declaration. As someone whose sole job was to watch for any sign of danger to the Zabi family, it was not a good sign that Gato had his focus on a Zabi who was tens of thousands of kilometers away versus the two Zabis who were in front of him.

Wanting to rectify the situation, Shin reached out to his left and lightly smacked Gato at his side. Gato's focus was interrupted thanks to the stimulus, and he turned to Shin with a slightly annoyed look on his face, only for Shin to meet his glare with a death stare and pointing to both Dozle and Zenna. Realizing his mistake, Gato's annoyance was replaced by embarrassment, the Spaniard Spacenoid mouthing an apology before standing on guard with his full attention now focused on the young Zabis. Satisfied, Shin returned to his post, resuming his watch of any possible threats to his friend.

The two Zabis, as well as the rest of the bridge crew, continued to watch in excited silence for the next few minutes as Gihren finished reciting the contents of the Declaration. This silence was broken at the end of Gihren's speech, with Gihren's declaration being returned by multiple shouts of "Sieg Zeon!", the bridge, along with hundreds of thousands of men and women stationed at Solomon, shouting at the top of their lungs in joy with their nation being free.

As Gihren was walking towards Degwin, Dozle took this as a perfect moment to directly address the fleet. Picking up a communicator at his chair which was a more advanced version of a Captain's intercomm, Dozle held it to his face while typing a few commands on his console so that it would be distributed throughout Solomon and the 2nd fleet.

"Brave sons and daughters of Zeon, within a few moments, our great nation shall rise up against the tyranny of gravity and proclaim its rightful place as a free and sovereign state among the stars, fulfilling the legacy of the great Zeon Zum Deikun. After today, the Federation shall have no choice but to recognize our righteous freedom. If they choose to oppose us, then we shall win our independence through iron and blood. We are in the midst of the greatest event in history, one that shall be remembered for generations to come. Long live the Principality, SIEG ZEON!" Dozle said, reinvigorating the morale of the troops once more.

A half a minute after Dozle's speech, Degwin would plant his signature on the declaration, making it an official and legal document, separating all ties between Side 3 and the Earth Federation. The Spacenoids based at Solomon were so lost in the euphoria of this momentous event, along with partaking in a third round of chanting, that they initially didn't notice the increasing white light that was not only beginning to spread throughout Parliament, but throughout the ships and local sector as well.

Within the command center at Solomon, Dozle was the first to notice something amiss. He had shifted his vision to gaze upon Zenna once more, when he started to notice his eyesight being engulfed in a bright white light. This caused Dozle to jump out of his chair in bewilderment, grabbing the attention of Zenna, Shin, and Gato; causing Dozle's closet companions to also take in notice of the unusual phenomena.

"What the hell is going on?!" Asked an increasingly nervous and unsure Dozle. The voice of their commanding officer and second in-line to their nation's throne caused all present to shift their attention away from the signing and towards their immediate environment. Witnessing an increasing intense white light surround them, caused fear and panic to engulf the vicinity. This was further increased by the increasing screams of an officer in the CIC, shouting in pure pain and agony due to the stress on his soul, awakening hidden powers that caused him to relive a future death at the hands of a white devil.

Fearing that some sort of attack was taking place, both Shin and Gato's trained instincts as bodyguards kicked in, their main priority being the health and safety of Dozle and Zenna Zabi above all others.

"Lord Dozle, we must evacuate immediately, I fear that Solomon is experiencing a chemical attack." Pleaded Gato. Dozle tried to comply with the request, but the increasing white light was making it difficult for him to see outside of a few meters in front of him with every passing second.

Fearing the worst and that these would be his last moments alive, Dozle sought out his wife. "Zenna!" He shouted in desperation.

"Dozle, I'm here." Zenna replied. While he could not see her entire body, Dozle could faintly see a small arm reach out towards him. Beliving it to be that of his spouse, Dozle reached out and grabbed the arm, pulling it and Zenna towards him, Dozle then encasing Zenna with a fierce hug in order to protect her with his titanic body.

In his last moments of consciousness, Dozle searched with his left hand until he found his wife's face. "I love you." Dozle said, then proceeding to kiss Zenna tenderly with her reciprocating. A few seconds later, both Zabis would collapse on the floor, losing all consciousness.

For some strange reason that he would never understand until the day he died, the last thing that Dozle Zabi would remember of his time in the Universal Century was hearing the anguished cry of a young teenage girl, shouting a single name.

_"Banagher!"_

**A/N: Hello everyone, this is Kaiser Chris coming at you with another Gundam story, "Gihren's Greed: Cosmic Cruade". The premise of this story is sequel, moments after declaring its independence, the Principality of Zeon along with the dark side of the moon and Zeon's possessions scattered throughout the Earth sphere, are all ISOT'd to the Cosmic Era on April 1st, CE 70. The story will focus on how the Earth Alliance, ZAFT, along with Orb and the neutral nations adapt to the presence of Zeon, while the Principality tries to chart its own destiny now that it is truly free and independent of the Federation.**

**Now since this is my second ongoing Gundam work, I'll answer some potential questions straight away.**

**Q:Why are you writing this, aren't you going to complete Gihren's Glory?  
A: Gihren's Glory shall always be my top priority, and in many ways it's because of Gihren's Glory that I'm writing this. When I was writing the last update for Gihren's Glory, I realized that at the current pace, even if I work at my best and give a handful of updates every month, it will be a LONG time before we get to the eventual war between Zeon and the Earth Federation. Since there will be very few mobile suit battles and most of the chapters will be a mix of drama, political intrigue, and worldbuilding, I thought i'd indulge traditional Gundam fans with another story that will have a far more conflict intense plot, with the ongoing Bloody Valentine War being a nice alternative for the lack of warfare in Gihren's Glory.**

**Q: What's going to be your priority between Cosmic Crusade and Gihren's Glory?**  
**A: Gihren's Glory will take precedence, and Cosmic Crusade is mostly meant to be supplemental material whenever the plot in Gihren's Glory is moving along slowly. After I get to a point in Gihren's Glory where I feel that enough development has been written, then I'll write chapters for Cosmic Crusade, and switch shortly back to Gihren's Glory. 2/3rd's of my Gundam focus will be on Gihren's Glory, and 1/3rd on Cosmic Cruade. I will do my best to write enough chapters of Cosmic Crusade to at least show the immediate aftermath of Zeon's entry, with the first phase taking place shortly after the completion of Operation Uroboros.**

**Q:Is there going to be any similar elements in Cosmic Crusade compared to Gihren's Glory?**  
**A: There will in the future be many Zeon OC's that will be shown in both stories, and both Zeon's share a common history leading up to Kaiser Gihren's insertion in 0067. However, Cosmic Crusade follows Gundam canon leading up to 0078, and as such Side 3 in this story will be radically different to Side 3 in Gihren's Glory 0078. The history of the Earth Federation is the same to 0067, but everything afterword is radically different, especially with canon Gihren still being present here. The two stories are mostly separate continuities. In the end, it's not going to be a major problem since the Universal Century will essentially be removed from the setting. Here, I'll mostly focus on fleshing out the Cosmic Era and the history that lead to the events of SEED.**

**Q:What will you be basing the SEED side on?  
A: Mostly on SEED and SEED Destiny, though the future plot will render the events of Destiny largely erased with what I am planning. Some characters from SEED MSV and Stargazer will appear to flesh out the cast. I'm trying to read Astray and see what I can incorporate, but outside of the Sahakus and the Astray girls, most of Astray's plot, especially the importance of Serpent Tail and the Junk Guild, will become irrelevent due to Zeon's presence altering the war dramatically. Since SEED is far less detailed than the Universal Century, I'm going to be making some creative liberties in order to produce a realistic take on how the Cosmic Era functions.**

**Q:How long is the story going to take?  
A: I intend to write until the end of the Bloody Valentine War. After that, my focus shall switch back entirely to Gihren's Glory, where I hope to reach the eventual Earth-Zeon war by that point. After I finish this story, I'll take a long break on SEED material before I even consider a sequel. While this story will have a definitive ending, it's continuation will depending on the outcome of the ending and whether I feel there will be enough material for future stories.**

**If you have any more questions, feel review or send a PM. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more!**


	2. Coordinating a War

**March 31st, 70 CE 11:55 P.M Colonial Standard. ****_ZAFT Georges Danton_****. Lagrange 5. Talia Gladys POV**

When it came to depictions of warfare in film, focus was usually given to the intense battles that took place, on the brave and titanic struggles of the protagonists as they stood alone with their comrades against the overwhelming might of the enemy. During the last decades of the 21st century, the focus of war films was usually dispersed equally between the horrors of the battlefield, and the temporary peace between engagements. In the Cosmic Era however, the focus towards the latter was dropped in favor of glorious warfare, presenting war to the audience as a heroic act where good shall triumph over evil and victory shall be brought to the nation. This tonal shift was unintentionally due to the peacetime of the Cosmic Era. It had been so long since there had been total war, that most of humanity had completely forgotten its horrors, instead treating the subject as mere fantasy, similar to the Western world during the 19th century.

To those who fought on the front lines of what was coming to be called the "Bloody Valentine War" such as Talia Gladys, she knew this to be far from the case. In her experience of fighting as a soldier for ZAFT in the past six weeks, war was an inconsistent cycle. There were days where she and the crew of the _Danton_ had little to do and maintained an eery, yet relaxed pace. There were some occasions where she would lead the Danton from intense battles, ranging from a skirmish of a couple of minutes, to hours. Then there was the constant repetition of both the wait before the next operation, and the endless training and simulations that she had her crew undergo so that they could be ready for any situation.

As of this moment, all was quiet aboard the _Georges Danton. _To the uninformed observer, one would think the ship was merely performing peacetime patrol. The truth was far more complicated, while the Danton would not intentionally be involved in any combat scenarios for the next couple of days in the best scenario, she would still have the burden of performing a vigilant duty in protecting the PLANT homeland. This was so another Junius Seven could be prevented, securing the PLANT's while a majority of ZAFT's forces implemented Operation Uroboros, the operation which according Chairman Zala, would bring about a swift end to the war and ensure eternal independence for the PLANTs while delivering Coordinator supremacy over space.

Talia pulled her right wrist up close and pulled down her sleeve a little bit to reveal an antique mechanical wristwatch that her late husband Eric had given to her as an anniversary present the previous year. The timing read 11:57. Meaning that there was only three minutes to go until April Fool's, the day that ZAFT would unleash its fury upon the Earth, an event that will most likely lead to untold destruction and the death of tens of millions at the least.

Talia leaned back in her chair slightly, and let off a slight melancholic sigh. _'How the hell did we get here?', _Talia thought to herself, lamenting that ZAFT had chosen to unleash WMD's to counter a WMD.

While Talia wanted nothing more than for justice to be delivered for her beloved Eric, what would occur in a few hours would not be justice, it would be disproportional vengeance. The monsters who were responsible for the death of her family were the bigoted politicians and military establishment in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing; not the billions of citizens of the Earth Alliance. Most of them had no say in Junius Seven, and many of them may be firmly against it. That wasn't even counting the millions of Coordinators left in the Alliance who ZAFT claimed to fight in the name for, especially in the Coordinator-friendly Eurasian Union.

In the end, Talia chose to be a model patriot and follow orders without question. The logical side of her argued that in the aftermath of Uroboros, the Earth Alliance would be too crippled to fight a prolonged war thanks to its lack of energy production, the complete collapse of their economies, and the complete space supremacy that ZAFT would achieve in the coming weeks. All of these conditions would force the Alliance to sue for unconditional surrender, allowing ZAFT to achieve its complete independence and live in peace as Coordinators have always wanted. Any short-term moral crimes would be outweighed by the endless long-term benefits. If not, then there was no guarantee that there wouldn't be another Junius Seven, that millions of her fellow Coordinators would never suffer the same loss that she had.

After Uroboros, there would be no more Erics, and all would be well.

Talia's thoughts were interrupted when she heard the faint _woosh_ of the bridge door opening. Out of the entrance emerged an Hispanic man with lightly tanned skin, black hair cut in a buzzcut, standing at a respectable height of 177 centimeters. It was her CO and fellow Black Coat, Hector Martinez.

Upon entering the bridge, Hector offered a salute to Talia, which she returned in full. Hector was a rather reserved subordinate, he rarely engaged in social interaction outside of performing his duty and the occasional conversation with Talia, and his behavior off-duty was mostly introverted with his usual activities being reading a variety of literature. Despite his social faults, Hector performed excellently as a commanding officer, executing all of her orders without question or error, and occasionally providing input that helped her to better see the overall tactical and strategic field. Talia hoped that after the war was over, Hector would receive his own command, and maybe one day a white coat.

"Captain."

"Commander. How are the N-Jammers holding up?" Talia asked. Over half an hour ago, Hector had asked Talia a small favor to perform a last minute checkup of the ships N-Jammer. While it had so far not produced any issues, no technology, even one that had the power to defy the known laws of physics, worked perfectly 100% of the time. A malfunction on the battlefield led to one of two outcomes, survival by pure luck and skill, or death.

"All green Captain. Barring any external damage from battle, there shouldn't be any potential issues moving forward."

"That's good to hear."

"Yep. Shame we aren't taking part of the operation. Would've loved to send some of those Atlantic _bastardos_ to hell." Hector said in what was a rather uncharacteristically emotional statement, then moving to take his seat in front of Talia. At first Talia was confused, until she remembered that Hector was born in South America, a nation that was currently occupied by the Atlantic Federation in an illegal coup that saw South America's leaders placed on house arrest and replaced with Atlantic puppets, later followed by the invasion of the continent with millions of Atlantic soldiers and marines. Despite the fact that South America was suffering under the boot of the AF, it was still a prime target of Operation Uroboros. After all, what would be the point of knocking out the North American power grid if the Federation could just suck South America dry of its nuclear fission energy to continue its war machine?

"Hector, are you okay with..." Talia struggled to ask the question in a polite way, only to get beaten to the punch by Hector.

"Uroboros wiping out South America's energy? I'm fine, there's no conflict of interest on my end." Hector said, mildly surprising Talia. "Don't get me wrong, I love South America, it's a beautiful nation with good people. However, it doesn't take an idiot to know the open secret that until a few years ago, its leaders were nothing more than the Atlantic's _putas. _Even worse is how much Blue Cosmos is openly trying to convert Central America to their crap, alongside all the success they've had in the cities. Uroboros will wound South America, but it's a necessary injury in order to liberate ourselves from the Federation. When this war ends in a couple of weeks, Clyne and Canaver will get rid of the occupation, then PLANT gets one more friend on Earth. It'll all work out in the end." Hector said with confidence.

"Glad to know." Talia said, not wanting to continue an awkward situation any further with her trusting Hector on his loyalties. She looked at her wrist watch, which showed less than fifteen seconds until April 1st. "All right people, Operation Uroboros is about to begin. We are now in the endgame of this war. Remember to..." Whatever Talia was about to say was cut off when on the main viewscreen, a sudden bright flash of white light appeared before the Danton. The flash was so bright, that Talia and everyone on the bridge had to cover their eyes for what seemed to be like half a minute.

"What's going on? It feels like looking straight into the sun on Earth." Hector commented.

_'The sun. No, it couldn't be.'_ A surge of fear entered Talia, nightmares replaying in her head with the destruction of Junius Seven on a continuous loop. "Helen, search for any nuclear explosions within L5. Hector, check the status of our N-Jammer." Talia ordered. A surge of adrenaline entered the bridge crew at Talia's orders, the captain confirming their worst fears.

Helen Mao, the bridge's communication's officer, responded first, "Captain, I'm not seeing any signs of nuclear radiation or an explosion for the next 25,000 klicks. Whatever it is, it's not happening anywhere near the homeland."

"N-Jammers are fully operational ma'am. This is most likely some sort of light trick, but I have no idea what's causing it. Did command send any word of some sort of secret tactic for Uroboros?" Hector asked.

"No. Everything was laid out plain in the report. Whatever's happening shouldn't be caused by us." Talia affirmed. Fortunately for the bridge of the Danton, the light seemed to be lessening in intensity to the point where it was no more after the next couple of seconds.

While Talia's eyesight was highly advanced through the genetics that all Coordinators were subject to in the womb, they were still only flesh in the end, and it took about five seconds of continuous blinking for her eyesight to return to normal. Talia gazed at the viewscreen, trying to find anything different about the surrounding area, where she saw what appeared to be several distant blips on the visual. Before she could ask for confirmation, Helen would reveal what was going on with a loud and horrified gasp.

"Ma'am, I'm detecting new contacts about 1700 klicks due galactic east. Seven hundred, eight hundred, nine hundred; we're looking at well over a thousand ships plus what appears to be a medium sized asteroid or planetoid deep in the center of the concentration of ships."

Upon hearing Helen's words panic started to inflate within the bridge. At the start of the war, ZAFT had a total number of 1,728 ships in service. 141 of these ships were lost in combat, 93 were currently being repaired, and over 1,000 were currently en route to Earth orbit and the moon to engage in Uroboros. With these numbers in play, it was completely impossible for ZAFT to have mustered the ships that were presently in front of the _Danton, _not to mention the presence of an asteroid that ZAFT did not have. What this meant was this was most likely an Alliance fleet, one that had somehow gained the drop on ZAFT and would attempt to launch an attack while 2/3rd's of the fleet were positioned outside of L5.

"Ma'am, is it possible that Chairman Zala called off Uroboros and recalled the fleet back home?" Asked the ships conn, Cedrick Parker in a worrying voice.

"Negative. If the Chairman had done so then we would've received some sort of update. Also, unless R&D happened to create some sort of new drive and didn't tell us about or equip us with it, it would be impossible for the fleet to return now, even in maximum acceleration.

"Ma'am, I've finished analyzing the current composition of the unknown fleet. In addition to the asteroid, there are 1,367 ships of varying sizes maintaining a tight formation. None of these ships match any known Alliance or Orb class. They're complete unknowns." Helen said, a statement which presented hardly any relief to those present.

"Could the Alliance have built new models within the past six weeks?" Asked a rather skeptical Hector.

"I'm sure the Alliance didn't think during Bloody Valentine that we had in development a machine to stop nuclear fission." Talia replied with. Wanting to get rid of this hysteria, Talia ordered for a visual on the fleet. "Get me visuals on the fleet, maximum magnification."

Her order was complied with, and in seconds the bridge of the Danton had a zoomed in look of who their new neighbors were. What they were presented with was an intriguing sight. Not only were these ships neither Alliance nor ZAFT, or even Orb, they looked like an almost alien sight. Almost all of the ships that were present appeared to be some sort of green model that was mostly concentrated in a dagger shape, before ascending the third of the ship upwards in what appeared to be half of an arch before reaching what looked to be a bridge. On the arch portion of the ship, were three two-barrel turret emplacements, looking in a similar manner to the battleships of the 20th century. From the end of the ship were two separated compartments that most likely acted as the thrusters.

Scattered among the fleet were smaller ships that most likely took the role of the fleet's frigates, these ships being more compact and whole versus the thin cruisers. Outside of the presence of two large turrets on the front and back of the starship, there was nothing special about the design. Then there were a few giants which were scattered throughout the fleet and most likely represented the dreadnoughts of the fleet. These ships were twice the size of the Laurasia and Nazca class. These ships carried with them an air of power and were clearly built for war, multiple turrets scattered throughout the vessel lending to a strong defense, with its other most noticeable component being the addition of numerous spheres towards the rear, the purpose for which Talia could not understand.

As impressive as these ships were, they were nothing compared to the shocking revelation of what these ships were escorted by. Scattered throughout the fleet and usually huddled close to the ships, were several green (along with some models of different colors) humanoid machines that were made from a bulky chasis along with sporting a single monoeye camera on its head. While these machines shared some similarities to the GINN, these were only in the aesthetic. For while the DINN could be said to represent a figure of a bird, these seemed to follow that of a mechanized spartan. Whatever the design philosophy, one thing was clear. These were mobile suits.

Someone other than ZAFT had mobile suits. If there was even a handful for each ship, then this meant that some unknown force had appeared outside of PLANT space with over twice the ships guarding the homeland, and thousands of mobile suits.

Panic then swept the bridge.

"Mobile suits! Someone else has mobile suits!"

"Is this the Alliance? Are they going to repeat Bloody Valentine?!"

"Where the hell did that asteroid come from? What kind of stealth technology could make this possible?!"

"Do they have N-Jammers?!"

"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!"

Needing to install order on her bridge quickly, Talia Gladys did something that she rarely did, and raised her voice in a strong yell.

"THAT IS ENOUGH!" The whole bridge then became quiet, all of them looking to their captain for guidance, eyes pleading for answers. "Now I have no idea who that is, or how the hell they came here. But I know one thing for certain. Those ships are NOT ZAFT. If we had the resources to double our fleet and turn an asteroid into a fortress, then we would've won the war by now. At the same time, I highly doubt it's the Alliance. They had the perfect chance to take out the PLANTs with whatever technology they're using, and yet they're sitting out there thousands of klicks away from the nearest colony. Those ships do not follow Earth designs, and Natural mobile suits are years away from the GINN. At this point we must retreat towards the homeland and regroup with any nearby vessels, standing by until we receive orders from the Defense Council. We're just one warship against that armada, and if we try to pick a fight all of us will die. For now let's report on what we found, and make sure that the homeland remains safe. Those are my orders. Am I understood?"

Silence greeted Talia in the next couple of seconds. "Let me repeat what I said only once. AM I UNDERSTOOD?!"

"YES MA'AM!" Came a returning roar by the bridge crew. Within an instant, confidence was now refilled into everyone present. Talia felt a sudden shift in force, as the _Danton_ changed its position to head back towards the plants. "Helen, try to contact any ships within a 1,000 klick range on laser comms, try to figure out their course of actions."

"Yes ma'am."

Hector looked back towards Talia. "Should I have the mobile suits escort us back home?" He asked.

Talia shock her head. "Negative. We don't want whoever's out there to think we're picking a fight. I want us to get back to the homeland as soon as possible and not slow our speed to worry about the GINNs. Tell all pilots though to make sure they're in their cockpits on standby."

"Understood." Hector replied. Talia then leaned back in her chair, mentally preparing herself for any potential engagements on the way back home.

In the proceeding years, Talia Gladys would forever regret the fateful decision that she made that day, to retreat back to the PLANTs and wait for new orders as the Home Fleet reorganized to meet the unknown threat. While it was the logical decision at the time, one that any competent officer would've agreed was the correct course of action, it was entirely pointless for what was to follow. Had Talia ordered the _Danton_ to investigate the sudden appearance of the mystery fleet, and made contact with Dozle Zabi, maybe she could've averted the chaos and despair that was to follow.

Two roads diverged into the future, and Talia Gladys took the road most taken. The events that would follow this decision in the coming days would shape the future of the Cosmic Era into a reality that would be entirely unrecognizable to humanity before April Fools. A future warped by the Principality of Zeon and the Zabi dynasty.

**April 1st, 70 CE. 1:00 A.M Colonial Standard. PLANT Capitol. Aprilius One. PLANT.**

_"In this quiet night, I'm waiting for you. Forgetting the past, and dreaming of you."_

Within his personal office, Siegel Clyne despaired. While no great personal tragedy had fallen upon the PLANT Chairman, from his current look you would think that the man had just received news of his family being murdered. Had Siegel been a man of vice, then he would've devoured liters of alcohol, or filled his office with endless clouds of tobacco, all in an effort to drown away the immense guilt, shame, and disgust over what was about to occur. However, Siegel had never been been fond of the strong taste of liquor, and like most of humanity in the Cosmic Era, he didn't dare to touch a hand on smoking products that would only lead to an early grave, courtesy of cancer. Instead, all Siegel had to comfort himself was a recording of the soothing melody of his daughter, Lacus Clyne. A daughter, who after the events of today, may not dare to speak to her father again in Siegel Clyne's worst fears. The worst part was, in Siegel's point of view, Lacus would be entirely justified if she decided to hate her father. It was the least he deserved after what would come in a few hours, a military operation that at its most minimum, would ensure the death of millions of Terrans on Earth.

Operation Uroboros.

When the concept for the N-Jammer was first proposed, it was meant as a purely defensive weapon that would be the savior of the PLANTS should the sponsor nations, especially the Blue Cosmos infested Atlantic Federation, would do the unthinkable and launch nuclear weapons. Even Patrick Zala, the man who Siegel would like to think was his best friend, was fully supportive of the usage of N-Jammer's as defensive only weapons, even when he was advocating a conquest of the moon at the same time.

After several months of development, the N-Jammers were near completion and upon said day, the PLANTs would forever be safe from Alliance aggression. Unfortunately, the Atlantic Federation chose to unilaterally act and nuke Junius Seven on Valentine's day, a week before the N-Jammers were supposed to be completed. Morale had fallen hard on those who had worked on the project, Siegel had heard that one of the researchers had tried to commit suicide, some sort of sick and twisted way to repent for his failure to complete the N-Jammer on time.

After Junius Seven, tensions within the PLANTs had been at an all-time high and many who had once called for peaceful coexistence with Earth now cried for natural blood. By far the worst affected was Patrick. Before Junius Seven, Patrick had simply been a pragmatist who had only wanted to do what was necessary for the protection of the PLANTs. Afterword the death of his wife Lenore, Patrick cried for a hard retaliation, becoming the most vocal member on the council to initiate a nuclear counterstrike against the moon.

For an entire week debate had raged on how to respond, the bickering only being allowed to exist due to the Alliance's inaction after Junius Seven, most likely caused by the severe backlash that the Atlantic Federation received from Eurasia and East Asia for its action. Then came news that the N-Jammer had been completed. With it came new opportunities. On February 22nd, Patrick had called an emergency meeting of the council. There he presented a brilliant yet horrific plan, to repurpose the N-Jammers to be inserted deep into the Earth's surface, and wipe out most of the planet's energy grid.

At first Siegel had rightly opposed such an extreme course of action. What good would responding to the destruction of Junius Seven be if they caused the deaths of millions of innocent civilians? Unfortunately Siegel soon found himself isolated. Most of his former allies had defected to Patrick and agreed that his plan was the best course of action for ending the war. Everyone wanted blood, some form of a great equalizer to not only avenge Junius Seven, but to get a greater payback at the same time. In the end, Siegel had turned against his values and voted for the conversion of the N-Jammers and for the foundations of Operation Uroboros to be laid, allowing for the vote to be a unanimous one. Had Siegel not chosen to do so, then he most likely would've been voted out of power as the Supreme Chairmen, and there would be no doubt that Patrick would've leaked his vote after a successful Uroboros, turning the public against him and killing his political career. At least in this way, Siegel would have the final say in all matters and could prevent extremism from taking control of the conflict. There was also the very real possibility, that Uroboros could be an instant knockout weapon to end the war. Hopefully then peace could resume in the Earth sphere.

Lost in melancholy, Siegel's eyesight drifted towards a picture frame that was positioned to the right of his computer. It was a photo of Siegel and Lacus together at Lacus' first singing competition, one that she had entered at the age of four. Despite her inexperience and age, Lacus had sang with the voice of an angel and had completely stunned the attending audience. She had easily won the competition, and in the photo that had been taken was Lacus holding her first trophy with pure joy, confetti scattered throughout her and baby blue dress, which did absolutely nothing to ruin her beauty that day. Siegel had been crouching right next to her, left arm wrapped around his pride and joy with the look of an incredibly proud father. That competition had opened doors for Lacus, eventually leading to her being the dominant pop singer of the PLANTs. It was one of their happiest memories together, one that Siegel would cherish for the rest of his life.

Siegel carefully picked up the photo, tears welling in his eyes at the sight.

"Lacus, will you ever find it in your heart to forgive your monster of a father?" There were times that Siegel wished he had never gone down the path of a politician. The main forces that kept him going was the fact that he was one of the few who had successfully lead his people out of the oppression of the sponsor nations, the knowledge that if he stepped aside then he would only be an enabler of the discrimination against Coordinators, and his desire to have his daughter grow up in a peaceful world where she would never experience hatred or prejudice.

Siegel's lamentations were interrupted when he heard a loud beep from his intercom.

Siegel wiped his eyes and set the photo down, then taking a few seconds to calmy breathe and get control of his emotions. "Yes?"

"Chairmen, Chairwoman Canaver is requesting to enter your office. She says its urgent." Siegel's secretary said.

"Let her in." He responded. About ten seconds later, a brunette with striking features walked through his door. Eileen Canaver, Diplomatic Chairwoman, Siegel's premier political ally (after Patrick's drifting) and someone who he considered to be a good friend.

"Hello Eileen." Siegel greeted warmly. Instead of returning the greeting, Eileen Canaver was silent, her face full of what seemed to be a mixture of anguish and confusion. Stress was highly visible upon the Coordinator diplomat, something that seemed to be even worse than Siegel's current condition.

"Is everything alright? What's the status of Uroboros? Did the Alliance launch some kind of attack?" Siegel asked eerily. He knew that if something of said magnitude were to take place then he would be notified immediately, yet he had never seen Eileen in this state since Junius Seven.

"Patrick's called an emergency session of the council. Something big has happened Sieg. I was the only other member of the council who he alerted beforehand and it...I've never...it's something that you _need_ to see for yourself. This war just got very complicated very fast." Eileen said cryptically. This vagueness did absolutely nothing to calm Siegel's nerves.

"Can't you just tell me what is happening?"

"Like I said, you need to see with your own eyes to believe it. Patrick will reveal everything during the meeting." Giving up the struggle, Siegel relented and followed Eileen out of his office and towards the Supreme Council chambers, all the while they were flocked by guards in purple ZAFT uniforms.

After five minutes of a quick walk, they had entered the chambers. It seemed that Siegel was the last one, with all the other seats sans Eileeen's being filled. Among the rest of the council, there was an uneasy air of apprehension filling the room, the rest of them being just as in the dark as Siegel. Siegel looked to Patrick Zala, who was sitting in his usual spot to Siegel's left. What struck Siegel was how Patrick was just as, if not at more unease than the rest of the council, a rarity for the leader of ZAFT. Though he kept himself well-guarded, Siegel had known Patrick long enough to know that his face was full of fear, something he had only shown on a few occasions of his life, the nuking of Junius Seven being the last.

"Sorry I am late everyone." Siegel offered, to break the ice.

"Don't be Chairman, we have only been waiting for a few minutes." Patrick responded.

Siegel took his chair, then began his role as moderator. "The PLANT Supreme Council shall now begin its emergency session called forth by Defense Chairman Zala. Would anyone like to offer a motion to proceed?"

Patrick raised his hand first, "Motion to begin the emergency session."

Siegel nodded his head in return. "Recognized. All those in favor?" All members of the council rose their hands unanimously. "All opposed? Then without further ado this emergency session has begun. Since Chairman Zala has called forth this meeting, then I shall give the floor to him."

Patrick nodded towards Siegel in respect, "Thank you Chairman. My fellow councilmen, at approximately 0000 hours, or Midnight colonial standard, a...extraordinary event has happened across the Earth sphere. Multiple ships of the Home Fleet patrolling the Eastern Quadrant of L5 reported what appears to be the sudden arrival of over 1300 ships along with a medium-sized military asteroid." Patrick said, then inputting several commands on his console to display the information to the rest of the council. When the images appeared, the whole council burst into fearful chatting, with the exception of Patrick and Eileen. Patrick had only shared the information with Eileen Canaver due to the Diplomatic committee also having jurisdiction over PLANT Intelligence, something that Patrick soon intended to correct with a potential absorption into ZAFT.

"What's worse is that among the images we've gathered of this new fleet parked outside of the PLANTs, we've picked up a rather disturbing development. Escorting these green ships and the red dreadnoughts are these." Patrick typed some more commands in his console, bringing up pictures of a bulky green humanoid machine. It was a mobile suit.

Upon seeing the MS, panic swept the council chambers. "How the hell did the Naturals steal from our designs?! The GINN has only been out for a few months." Said a rather bewildered Ezalia Joule, stating the obvious of what everyone was thinking.

"Sadly, this is not even the worse part." Patrick stated solemnly.

"This isn't?! What do they have that could possibly be worse? Nuclear weapons that bypass the N-Jammers?" Asked Yuri Amalfi.

"With what we have seen right now, maybe." Patrick said ominously. "At the exact same time as this unknown fleet entered our space, our men at the Lorentz crater picked up a HUGE spike in communications coming from the far side of the moon." What Patrick had just said sent even more confusion into the minds of the council. Why would there be communications on the far side? In the carefully managed Space Cold War between the Alliance nations, they had neatly divided the moon into several zones of influence, and no nation had claimed the far side as part of their territories. "While the Lorentz base itself wasn't able to obtain any visuals of what was happening behind the moon due to its activation of the base's N-Jammers as well as the Natural's destruction of all of our lunar satellites up until this point, the amount of communications that we've picked up is one that is numerous times greater than the daily communications across the PLANTs, both civilian and ZAFT.

My guess is the presence of another fleet stationed in L2, due to visuals transmitted to us by the Uroboros Fleet, that of over 1000 ships and a large asteroid in L4, almost mirroring the formation which has parked itself in L5." Patrick said, bringing up more images on the central monitors of a different fleet with the same ships and mobile suits, though not as clearly as detail due to the distance compared to the fleet in L5.

"Based on the size and resources of these two fleets, as well as the unknown formation in L2, it is my understanding that this is most likely a Natural fleet with new stealth technology and mobile suits, one that is now parked right outside of the PLANTs and prepared to attack, while at the same time most of our fleet is scattered across the Earth sphere for Uroboros." As Patrick's last words left his lips, the council exploded into panic and uncertainty.

"HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED?!"

"THIS IS IT, THE END OF THE PLANTS!"

"DAMN THOSE NATURALS TO HELL! WE WERE SO CLOSE TO VICTORY!"

As this shouting was going on, Siegel was silent, deep in thought and trying to comprehend just what was going on. While it wouldn't be too surprising for the Alliance to develop mobile suits or a new stealth technology without ZAFT's knowing, which was plausible since ZAFT's intelligence reach was only in Eurasia due to the difficulty of getting a spy planted in East Asia and the Atlantic Federation due to their intense anti-Coordinator bias, there were so many factors about it that didn't make sense. Why would they reveal themselves so early and ruin the element of surprise? Why didn't they cease their stealth operations when they were right on top of the Uroboros fleet, or the PLANTs? Why was there a fleet of a thousand ships at L4? There was nothing there but the East Asian ghettos, unless this was a purely East Asian operation. What was going on in L2? A secret shipyard? A military base that one of the sponsor nations hid from the others? Some kind of superweapon?

Wanting to get productive work and answers over senseless babble, Siegel did something that he rarely ever did and raised his voice. "ORDER! Order to the council!" The sound of Siegel yelling was enough to shake the council members out of their bickering, all eyes turning attention to the Supreme Chairmen. "While this information could most certainly present a danger to the PLANTs, it is still far too early to determine just what is going on. All we know is that at midnight, two unknown fleets appeared in L5 and L4 with a possible third formation in L2. There is nothing at this point to suggest that this could be a prelude to an Alliance attack."

"And just what exactly do you propose is really going on?" Asked Patrick. Siegel turned his head to face his former best friend, whose eyes stared back in disbelief. "There are only two Natural factions that have the capabilities for space projection, the Alliance and Orb. Unless Uzumi Nara Attha suddenly became a warmonger overnight and somehow had the resources to build at minimum two fleets of over 2,000 ships, well beyond our own capacity and an impossibility from Orb considered its huge debt from Heliopolis, then I highly doubt that speck of a nation could do this. Then there's the Alliance, a group of nations who have the exact industrial capacity needed to produce these kinds of numbers, nations who we have barely any intelligence in besides Eurasia, and have up until this point have done nothing but engage in a phony war after obliterating Junius Seven. Last year if somebody had told us that there was a machine that could stop nuclear fission, we would've called them lunatics. Yet what do we have installed on our ships at this very moment? It's extremely possible that the Alliance could build a new stealth technology, after all it wasn't too long ago that Artemis was created along with the lightwave barrier, something that was then thought to be equally impossible. As such, it must be the Earth forces."

While Patrick did have a strong amount of logic behind his reasoning, Siegel, along with a growing number of the council were becoming unconvinced. "Patrick, I may not be a martially-inclined like you are, but I know enough basic strategy to know that it is incredibly stupid to reveal your position to the enemy before you have the perfect ambush set up in place. Why would the Alliance, having the most prime opportunity to launch an attack while most of our forces are away, reveal themselves when they are on the other side of the Lagrange." Siegel reasoned.

"Maybe it's because their stealth technology failed before they could get the drop on us. All forces were to have their N-Jammers operational at 0000, maybe their stealth technology was reliant on a nuclear reactor." Patrick reasoned.

"Yet the same event occurred in L4 and L2, and we don't have any presence there." Siegel countered.

"What I want to know is who built these ships and what kind of design philosophy they were using. The ships represent an entirely complete departure in design philosophy from the Alliance, and none of them seem to match the carrier doctrine that has been in play for the last two centuries. I can see the mobile suits, but where are the carriers? Not to mention if the Alliance had mobile suits, why haven't they used them up until this point? I highly doubt they were invented in the past six weeks, and the Alliance would not have seen any need to as despite the GINN's individual superiority, battle results have shown Mobile Armors to be equal with numbers." Eileen stated.

"Just where the hell could these ships have been made? It would be impossible to cover up the amount of resources and financial capitol needed for a grand project like this, not to mention the two asteroids." Herman Gould asked.

"If the Alliance has new stealth technology that is able to cover up entire fleets, then it could've been used to cover up some secret shipyard. With the spike in communications from the far side and L2, that could easily be where a new shipyard is located. We all know the Alliance has been siphoning funds for an expansion of their Space Forces in the past decade. Just these last five years alone their total forces have expanded by 20%. Some of those funds and materials could've been easily directed towards this secret fleet. As for the Asteroids, you're guess is good as mine. Maybe the Martians are involved." Ezalia Joule deducted.

"The Martians? Now we're just delving into mindless speculation. The Martians are just as wary of Earth as we are, there's no way they'd cooperate with the Alliance. What I'm wondering about is which individual nation created this fleet. Outside of different classes they all follow the same design philosophy. While the Alliance may be united against us, it's one of temporary convenience. This phony war has most likely been caused by a political deadlock after Junius Seven. While some members refuse to believe it, there were mass protests on Earth, even in the Atlantic Federation, after Bloody Valentine. I highly doubt that they'd happily partner up for such a huge undertaking. Only the Atlantic Federation and Eurasia would have enough funds and materials for such a massive operation." Suggested Yuri.

"It's gotta be East Asia. It's strategically pointless to post those ships in L4 and a waste not to have them combine with the fleet at L5. East Asia is the only nation with a presence in L4, even if it is their ghettos. The ghettos may contribute nothing to East Asia's presence in space, but they've always been paranoid about maintaining Chinese supremacy within their nation. I can't see the Atlantic or Eurasia doing so unless they're stabbing East Asia in the back. And we all know that South Africa has no capacity for such an operation." Said Tad Elsman.

The discussion went on for the next twenty minutes, each council member adding their own theories on what was happening. More than half the council agreed that this was an Alliance fleet, yet no one could agree on how the Alliance could possibly have pulled this off. The rest of the council was either at a loss for who was responsible, or was pulling random theories to try to provide an explanation. Some suggested Orb, others the Equatorial Union, and Orson White in an offhand comment suggested aliens, which then sparked a fierce debate for the last five minutes if this was an alien or human foe.

In the middle of all this was a silent Patrick Zala, who was infuriated for the discussion having veered so off course. "THAT IS ENOUGH!" Patrick yelled, slamming his right fist on the console, which got the council to go silent. "We have no concrete information on how this has happened, and the rest of you are uselessly wasting time tying to play detective while the fate of the nation is at stake. We should cease talking about the who and why, and instead discuss how we deal with this threat to our homeland." Patrick stated, something that the rest of the council could agree with in shame.

"What actions have they taken at this time?" Siegel asked.

"So far, nothing. That's the only reason why I let all of you jabber for so long, if they were about to attack then I would've left this meeting and lead our nation's defense. At this current time, our ships and satellites have detected no movements beyond minor changes of position between the ships and mobile suits. We have detected radio waves between the asteroid and the far side, and as much as I want to block them with the N-Jammers, I can't risk sending ships there until we have a sizable force, not with those mobile suits in play as a wild card. For now I've ordered the entirety of the Home Fleet to guard the PLANTs in a 100 kilometer radius. All other ships engaged in Uroboros are to proceed on schedule.

"Should we really concern ourselves with Uroboros when the homeland is at risk?" Eileen asked.

"It is for the safety of the homeland that Uroboros must proceed on schedule. Whatever the hell the Naturals are plotting, they have wasted precious time parking their ships and separating their forces. If the new fleets head to Earth at full speed, they will still be unable to reach Earth orbit before our ships are. We'll still have several hours to complete the operation, and that's if their ships leave now instead of uselessly parking. Now matter the scheme, if we knock out the Earth's power grid, then they have to surrender and the war will be over. It'll be the worst strategic defeat if we abandon Uroboros now." Patrick argued.

While Siegel would like to agree that Patrick had the right mindset, there were still too many unknowns from the new fleet to be assured that the Home Fleet could take care of it on its own. Maybe if the ships parked at the edge of L5 were regular Nelsons, Drakes, and mobile armors. But the addition of mobile suits and new classes left him worried. "Uroboros shall proceed, but we need to recall the 200 ships set to patrol the moon and L1. As useful as they would be in culling the Alliance's fleet numbers, we need every ship to spare to protect the homeland."

Patrick looked horrified at Siegel's suggestion, "If we do that, then we will lose a prime opportunity to destroy hundreds, thousands of Alliance ships. We could very well eliminate a third or half of their combined Space Force by the end of the day. If we launched a strike with even a fraction of the Home Fleet, then victory will be assured. After all, their ships will still run on nuclear fission, and as such they will be powerless and without propulsion. No Natural mobile suit, _especially_ with their inferior piloting, could ever hope to turn the tide, even in greater numbers."

"The Alliance built this new stealth technology without our knowledge, they could easily have some other new toys that could harm our fleet. I'm already being gracious enough by allowing Uroboros to continue, not to mention keeping the Lorenz ships on the moon. 200 ships could very well mean the difference between the life or death of the PLANTs. Would you really risk that over the chance just to needlessly kill ships in a pointless strategic engagement?!" Siegel asked with an immense amount of passion.

Patrick looked visibly taken aback at his words, and in an event that Siegel had rarely seen in these past months he relented. "I concede to your point Supreme Chairman." Patrick said, though in a highly bitter tone. "For now I'd like to ask leave of the council to head to ZAFT command to organize the defense of our homeland. I'll have a battle plan ready by the end of the day, if the unknowns have not moved to attack us yet."

Siegel nodded his head in approval. "Your leave is granted. For now I'd like the rest of us to monitor the situation, as well as the overall greater scope of the war around the Earth sphere. No matter the cost, the beginning of the end of this war must begin today."

**March 31st, 70 CE. 11:50 P.M Colonial Standard. ****_ZAFT Jin Yuelin_****. Rau Le Creuscet POV**

Within the pilots changing room of the _Jin Yuelin_, Creuset MS Team leader Rau Le Creuset was slowly and methodically putting on his red pilot suit. Compared to the other five pilots, Le Creuset was dressing incredibly slow. To the point that he was barely halfway done while the rest were already finished.

"Sir, is it okay if we head towards the hangar right now?" Asked one of Rau's subordinates.

Rau looked towards his men and offered a small smile. "Go ahead, you shouldn't stay behind because of me. I'll head there in a few minutes." Rau said in a rather soothing and polite tone.

Relieved that they had gotten permission from their squad leader, the five pilots walked out of the room and headed towards the hangar. Seconds later, when he was sure that he would be alone, Rau let down his guard, with his rather monotone face slowly warping into a smile of pure glee. In truth, Rau had been deliberately dressing slowly so that he could savor every moment of what was to come. For while Rau's body language before had been cool and guarded, inside Rau felt as if he was on pure ecstasy. For in a few hours Operation Uroboros would begin, and with it, the beginning of the end for this disgusting race called humanity.

_'I've been blessed for the conflict to proceed this far. Once I come back home a war hero, and with Zala further in my pocket, I shall have real power for the first time and be able to proceed with my plans.'_ Rau thought to himself joyfully.

Rau's only hope was that ZAFT would not inflict too many grievous losses on the Alliance and they would surrender from pure shock and grief. In Rau's most optimistic estimates, tens of millions at the upmost would die within Alliance territories 24 hours after the completion of Uroboros. In Rau's best case scenario, these massive and unprecedented casualties since the end of the Reconstruction War would fuel the flames of hatred. Billions would cry out for vengeance, and the war would continue with gradual escalation until the PLANTS were wiped out and the Earth and Luna were rendered uninhabitable. This would not be achieved if peace was settled within the coming weeks. Though in that scenario Rau hoped that the PLANTs would suffer from victory disease and their growing superiority complex over the Naturals would soar to new heights, in the meanwhile the Alliance would slowly rearm and find a way to bypass the N-Jammers to unleash new WMD's that would wipe out the PLANTs.

In that scenario Rau would do his best to add fuel to the flames of war and grant every equal advantage to both sides until mutual destruction was the only outcome. Any other scenario would be a complete and total failure. This festering cancer called humanity would spread throughout the cosmos, and leaving a disgusting stain among the stars until the end of time.

_'I am the supreme being. I shall overcome all and deliver judgement upon the cockroaches that lay beneath my feet. Humanity's destiny shall be a glorious holocaust, and I shall enforce it.' _

After a few minutes of slow dressing, Rau was completely suited up, and headed out of the room to move towards the hangar. A few minutes later, Rau reached the mobile suit hangar, and headed towards an olive-green GINN in the center.

"Sir, your GINN is armed and cleared to launch." Said a mechanic in a green jumpsuit who was to unimportant for Rau to bother remembering.

"My thanks. Thanks to your talented hands, I shall lead the Yuelin's squad to victory and the war shall end soon." Rau said in a false compliment. It always tired Rau to give out these niceties and platitudes to insignificant creatures who were far below him. Unfortunately in this chaotic world called human society, one needed to be polite and corteous to those around them in order to be well-liked. Soldiers who were popular with their subordinates and superiors tended to rise high and quickly within the ranks. If being nice was needed in order for Rau to rise higher in his quest for total power over humanity's fate, then he would be the most well-liked Coordinator in all of the ZAFT.

Rau jumped forward, his body floating towards the cockpit in low gravity. As Rau was about to open the cockpit, he felt a burning sensation akin to a bolt of lightning. While Rau had similar experiences before, this was on a whole new level. Whereas before Rau's flashes of enhanced spacial awareness and mental prowess were fleeting and temporary, usually in moments of high adrenaline, this one was continuous and extreme, bringing him immense pain and agony.

"**Auuaghaugagh!**" Rau screamed from the torture and suffering of his soul, unleashing wild shrieks that sounded more akin to those of a beast than man. In seconds, Rau's consciousness shifted from his present surroundings, to multiple flashing environments of different times and places, all centered around himself. Rau would've liked to say that he saw his life flash before his eyes, however, this was not of events that had happened prior, but of those yet to come.

Most of what Rau had seen appeared to be revolving around the war, one that was to his temporary satisfaction, far prolonged than that of Uroboros. Rau saw himself above Earth's orbit, wiping out dozens of mobile armors and scores of Alliance ships with relative ease. Then he was flying over the lunar surface, engaged in an intense duel with an orange mobile armor that fought as his equal, a brief flash revealed a blonde man in a purple pilot suit whose features were near identical to his own. La Flaga! Rau then saw himself being briefed for an important reconnaissance mission by the council, a quarter of whom worrying about the safety of their brats, while Zala was silently ordaining him with free reign.

Rau saw himself in combat above the airspace of some O'Neil colony, himself once again engaged in combat with La Flaga, both men having faced each other off at several times at this point. He witnessed the destruction of said colony, done by his own hands. The next several scenes seemed to be of close combat with a strange legged ship, its guardian knights being La Flaga once more, along with a strange red, white, and blue mobile suit. Upon seeing the alien mobile suit, Rau felt a surge of raw hatred and loathing, something he had never felt in his life, his opinions on the La Flaga family not even coming close.

He foresaw an Alaskan battlefield, where he had successfully played the role of a puppeteer and created a grand slaughter between the forces of ZAFT and Eurasia. Unfortunately, his master plan would not be a total success thanks to the interference of the legged ship and that...that..**abomination**, who rode into battle in a new mobile suit, an unholy chariot that acted as the successor to his previous weapon. He remembered a young girl with flames for hair, someone who he had used to escalate the war into the perfect climax.

At last his mind drifted to what felt to be the final battle of the war, and what a _glorious_ battle it was. He soared through the conflict in what was the perfect mobile suit, a living titan with unmatched firepower that he used to obliterate all those who dared stand in his way. It was going so well, so perfect. ZAFT would destroy the Earth, the Alliance was to nuke the PLANTs. He had even felt La Flaga die, La Flaga! All was to end well, until that wretched...**thing**, got in his way for the last time. After he had killed the thing's whore, the thing had unleashed some sort of hidden power, one that had tipped the scales of what was supposed to be his final victory.

_"This is our destiny! People knew where they were heading when they choose this path."_

_"Shut up!"_

_"Justice and Faith. Ignorance and Escapism. They never learn, they never listen! We have reached the end of that path, there is no way to end that now! Mankind vanquished, at last! Just as they deserve."_

Though he had finally managed to mortally wound the suit, it came at a high cost. The abomination had managed to overcome him, destroying all of his weapons, crippling his movement, and delivering a finished blow with the thrust of a beam saber. Rau's last thoughts would be of his failure, how he had come so close, yet achieved virtually nothing, mankind still alive and ready to spread and infest the cosmos. A great light engulfed him, and Rau knew no more.

Throughout all of this, one person kept coming to mind, one who filled Rau with infinite fury. A Coordinator who had betrayed his own kind and fought for fools and ideals. The harbinger of life, Lacus Clyne's dog, the Ultimate Coordinator.

"**Kira Yamato**." Rau weakly whispered in pure venom, before then blacking out into unconscious, the last image he saw being the movement of several crewmen surrounding his body in heightened concern.

Unknown to Rau at the moment, what he was experiencing was an awakening of the soul, an event of forced evolution caused by a miracle that had transported a nation across space and time. Across the Earth sphere in the Cosmic Era, tens of millions would be experiencing a similar pain to Rau, their souls crying out in anguish as these humans were either reborn with psychic prowess, or had their existing abilities enhanced. March 31st CE 70 would be what many historians considered to be the end of the Coordinator Age. From April 1st CE 70 onward, the Age of the Newtype would begin.

**A/N: With this chapter over, ZAFT is now aware of Zeon's presence and is moving to deal with them as Operation Uroboros is underway. Whether it shall be a peaceful first contact, or a bloody one, remains to be seen. For this chapter I wanted to mainly show the mindset of ZAFT and the PLANTs pre-Uroboros, and how the war is affecting them. While the war hasn't gone to the extremes of GENESIS, to many within ZAFT it's a war of survival where they must use the N-Jammers or else another Junius Seven begins. Uroboros was supposed to end the war, but with the entry of Zeon the tides of war have entered unknown waters.**

**In regards to the characters present, my favorite parts were writing the debate in the council and Rau's twisted mind. Unlike most SEED fics, I will not completely ignore Destiny's characters during the First Bloody Valentine War, and Talia and others like Durandal and LOGOS will make more appearances in the future. For the Council, I wanted to show a more multi-layered and nuanced portrayals than Clyne's righteous hippies versus Zala's genocidal warhawks. We have to remember in the end that Siegel signed off on Uroboros and that Zala was only pushed to where he went because his wife was nuked and he had the stress of running a total war against the majority of the Earth and humanity, with a good portion of his enemies wanting the Coordinators to be wiped out. As of now, Zala hasn't gone full genocidal, but he's still falling towards that route and his opportunities to rise up are closing. Then we have everyone's favorite nihilist at the end. Let's just say that Le Creuscet is not going to be in the same position that he was in canon.**

**Now I think there will be some questions to plot points raised in this chapter, mainly Talia's family and the aforementioned "East Asian Ghettos". On the wiki it states that Talia has a son and was previously married. While she had some form of past relationship with Durandal and they had a sexual relationship in Destiny, the show never addresses what happens to Talia's spouse. Therefore I came up with the idea that her husband died in Junius Seven, leaving her widowed and a single mother. Here is where Durandal came in and gave her comfort after the war, though it never worked out because Talia wanted more children. Talia having lost a husband at Junius Seven is to present her with a strong contrast to Patrick Zala. Whereas Patrick became genocidal, Talia stuck with a moral compass and simply became a loyal soldier of ZAFT.**

**As**

**for the East Asian "Ghetto colonies", they are an original creation that was conceived by my fellow author Jaenera Targareyan in her drafts for SEED works. I'll explore them later on as they'll be important plot points, but basically they are colonies for East Asia to deport most of its Korean and Japanese populations. In the Cosmic Era, most nations are highly imperialistic and have a huge moral downgrade compared to our world, East Asia here is essentially a reverse Co-Prosperity sphere with China at its head. Like I said, I'll delve into this later along with the rest of the Earth nations. **

**Next chapter will be a couple of Alliance POV's, then we'll head back to the Zabis to see how they react in being a part of this new world. Because Orb was doing nothing at the moment, they won't show up for a while, but they'll make their proper appearance soon. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more.**


	3. Children of Earth

**March 31st, 70 CE. 11:20 P.M. Colonial Standard. Atlantic Federation Ptolemaeus Lunar Base. Norman Smith POV**

_"Nobody can tell ya; There's only one song worth singin', They may try and sell ya, Cause it hangs them up to see someone like you. But you've gotta make your own music, Sing your own special song, Make your own kind of music even if nobody else sings along."_

With a tired groan and eyes fluttering wildly, Lieutenant Junior Grade Norman Smith of Zero Squadron woke up to the sweet sounds of Mama Cass, ripping him from his temporary slumber and back to the war.

"Time to get back to work." Norman said to himself. He looked to his clock, and sighed in relief that it was 11:20, a full forty minutes before the mandatory squad briefing at midnight from Commander Lindgren. After dinner he had went straight to his quarters and was determined to get at least four hours of sleep before the briefing. Since the war began his hours of rest and been few and far between, and as such he was determined to get any amount of sleep before returning tot the battlefield, which was something that Norman suspected would be soon.

Seeing that his roommate wasn't present, Norman quickly dressed out of his current shirt and shorts and into the standard dress of the Atlantic Federation Space Force, vanilla white with just a hint of black and grey. Once he was fully dressed, Norman spent some time checking his messages, news updates, along with scrolling through some forums that he regularly visited. With his minor check on his online social life complete, Norman stepped out of his quarters and made his way to the briefing room where the pilots of Zero Squadron would be informed about their newest assignment.

For the first five minutes Norman moved silently through the halls of the Ptolemaeus lunar base, casually engaging in some people watching as he walked diligently towards his destination. As he was walking, Norman noticed that alongside the usual number of Atlantic white, there was an increasing rise of Eurasian slate grey, East Asian Navy Blue, and even South African green were becoming ever present throughout the base. It was a sight that would've been impossible over a year ago, yet here they were, their fellow allies moving freely through what was supposed to be the Atlantic Federation's bastion on Luna. Norman didn't know whether to be proud of this spirit of international cooperation, or afraid of the repercussions of letting potential enemies and rivals gain information that they could exploit after the war was won.

_'Oh well, at least we have Atlantic servicemen stationed at East Asian and Eurasian bases so it's a somewhat equal tradeoff.'_ Norman thought.

Norman's lamentations on international relations were interrupted when he felt a slap on his back, followed by the distinct Texan drawl of one of his squadmates.

"What's up Normie?" Asked Lieutenant Junior Grade Enrique "Rick" Seguin, a friend of Norman's who had entitled him with the nickname of "Normie" on the first day of Zero's squadrons formation, a nickname which he had begrudgingly become to accept.

"Steel, regolith, some ships and mobile armor depending on our position." Norman replied dryly, earning a chuckle from Rick.

"You aint exactly wrong. How come you never went into comedy with your wit?" Asked Rick playfully.

"Well someone has to stay within the squad to save your ass from GINN's." Norman once again replied dryly, Rick rolling his eyes in response.

"I have more kills than you." Rick said, a statement that was backed on the record.

"True, but you also take far more damage than me. Ever scratch I take i take you get a gunbarrel blown to shreds."

"You have to be a gambler on the battlefield if you want to take as many of the enemy out as possible. You're far too conservative and as such you'll only get one or two kills at most when the battle is done. This is a war of attrition, and the more ZAFT suits we kill, the quicker this war ends."

"It's better to chose strategies that keep your comrades alive. What's the point of victory if ZAFT claims five armors for every suit." Norman said, though he realized he may have taken a bit too far when he saw Rick's face become somber, eyes filled with hatred and sorrow over the memories of the many comrades they've witnessed lost in their battles. Zero Squadron may have had the most victories of any unit in this war, though all of them came with a high price that saw most of their battlegroup either damaged or destroyed. "Sorry." Norman offered.

"It's okay." Rick said shaking his head. "It's fine to feel that way, I just think it's better to take out ZAFT pilots before they shoot back. We're the only pilots in the entire Alliance who can take the suits on individually, we should do so at every opportunity, save the tin cans from having to fire a single shot." Ricky said, referring to the Moebius MA's that were quickly showing themselves to be far less battle proficient in combat than all the simulations had predicted them to be. Before the war, being a mobile armor pilot was a sign of prestige, now it was a sign of an early death sentence without sufficient skill and luck.

The sudden morbidity of the conversation caused the two pilots to go into silence, their walk being quiet for the next forty seconds until Rick restarted the conversation in a more hopeful tone. "I think the briefing will point us into a new path for the war, where we can end the fighting soon."

"Why so optimistic?" Norman questioned with suspicion. "Washington has been forcing us into a phony war since Junius Seven..."Norman's statement caused a brief resurgence of awkward silence due to the Nuking-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, an event that tore the civilian population of the Federation into two camps on the issue, and was the source of several intense fights within the AFSF over whether Junius Seven was the perfect response or completely over proportional. "Except for Victoria neither side has many grand plans and it will probably continue for the next month. Unless you have some high cousins in Washington."

"Please." Rick rolled his eyes once more. "If I had family in Washington then I wouldn't be a pilot. No, the thing is I was chatting with some communications officers-"

"More like flirting with communications officers. Was it Beverly again?" Norman asked, Rick getting a look of slight offense on his face.

"First of all, I was talking with a group of guys, second of all, Beverly has someone waiting for her on Earth, unfortunately. Anyway the point is I was chatting with communications, and they told me that something _big_ is about to happen in the Earth sphere. Right now they're tracking over 800 ships heading to Earth orbit and 200 heading for the moon. They're probably going to try another Victoria, or maybe they'll go after Panama, who knows."

While Rick didn't state it, Norman knew the reason for his optimism. "With 3/4th's of their fleet away from the PLANTs, ZAFT is exposing themselves wide open and forcing the Alliance to get back into the fight. The war's going to end in a few months and it's all because Patrick Zala is a suicidal idiot." Norman said, with Rick nodding in agreement.

While the Alliance had so far undertaken an unexpected 5 to 1 ship ratio in relation to combat with ZAFT (figures for mobile weapons usually ranged with 5 to 10 mobile armor per mobile suit), in the end the Alliance was able to achieve a majority of victories so far in the war through sheer numbers with the exception of a few isolated skirmishes and the infamous tie that was Yggdrasil. While the Alliance most certainly could've end the war by now, they chose not to due to political bickering of the past six weeks as well as fears of the dreaded kill ratio. If ZAFT chose to send half their fleet for an earth operation, then the phony war would end and the Alliance would jump in on the PLANTs when they would be at their most exposed.

"I'm assuming that since we haven't been deployed immediately, that an OMNI battlegroup has already been sent and we'll be going after Lorentz or the PLANTs?" Norman asked, with Rick nodding along silently.

"I bet you twenty bucks that the Commander is going to send us to Lorentz. I hope so, I don't want to be in L5 when the invasion happens. After Junius Seven, I don't think ZAFT is going to accept an unconditional surrender. It's going to be a Berlin scenario, and I won't be surprised if a few colonies get nuked in the process." Rick said, his tone once again becoming somber. While Norman knew that his friend was no progressive on Coordination, at the same time he was no Blue Cosmos recruit. He never publicly condemned Junius Seven and had never once displayed any feelings of anti-war sentiment, but sometimes Norman felt that Rick never had his heart entirely in the fight, that he just wanted the war to be done with and that was all. It made him wonder how many years Rick intended to stay in the service.

"Whatever happens, happens. We'll do our duty and fight for the Federation." Norman stated, bringing assurance to Rick and largely letting the topic of nuclear warfare be a distant hypothetical that Zero squadron would hopefully not be involved in.

After another minute of walking the two made their way to the briefing room. Inside the room was half full, the various pilots of the international unit casually engaging socially until the Commander arrive. Up in the front row, both Norman and Rick saw a familiar blond Quebecois hotshot sitting by his own, completely relaxed with his eyes closed and back laying downward to the edge of the seat.

"Hey Mu, surprised to see you show up early. Finally bother to get an alarm clock?" Rick greeted to Mu La Flaga, the most talented member of Zero squadron as its highest scoring ace.

"Well let's just say that I'm in a good mood today, and I don't want to risk the Commander making me run on base. And for your information, I have an alarm clock, it's just that life always likes to present me with detours whenever I try to reach my destination." Mu said calmly.

"Ah yes, because as we all know the Ptolemaeus Base is just filled to the brim with old ladies crossing the street and stray cats who need to be rescued from trees." Norman said dryly, referring to two of Mu's many excuses when he ran late, causing both Mu and Rick to laugh.

"What can I say, I'm an outstanding citizen." Mu said in a bit of self-deprecation, fully aware of his habitual tardiness, yet caring little to correct it. "By the way Rick, sorry about Beverly."

"_Oh dios mio_, it was just a passing interest, I wasn't obsessed." Rick complained to the amusement of his fellow pilots. Both Rick and Norman sat down, with Norman to Mu's Left and Rick to Norman's left.

To Norman, Mu La Flaga was an enigma. When he had first joined the squad, he came off as a slightly arrogant brat who thought he was above all others like he was some Coordinator. It turns out that Mu did have the skills to back up his arrogance, with him trashing everyone except the Commander in the simms, then overtaking the Commander after a few weeks. Fortunately, once the Squadron got to know Mu they saw him as a relaxed and carefree spirit who was fun to hang around and would always have your back. In many ways Mu was a paradox. He was a slacker who skirted military protocols as much as he could, yet was a pilot with miraculous skills who went above and beyond to protect his squadmates in battle. He was a chatterbug who was the life of the party, yet was highly closed off on his life and refused to about anything of his past before the Academy. He was insanely street smart, yet the furthest thing from a scholar (though Norman took this due to a lack of effort rather than capability in his point of view). Mu may have been pretty strange, though there were few pilots within the squadron who didn't have a quirk about them, and so long as Mu kept up his skills and did his duty, Norman would trust him with his life any day.

The trio continued to chatter on for a while, with the briefing room slowly being filled by the rest of the squad, until at last Commander Lindgren arrived with Lieutenant Commander Madon.

"Attention!" Mu shouted, with himself and the rest of the squadron rising to their feet in salute. Lindgren returned the salute momentarily.

"At ease." The Commander said, allowing the Moebius Zero pilots to sit down. "Pilots, this war just got highly complicated really fast, and it looks like thanks to ZAFT's strategic ineptitude, it will arrive to an end sooner than later. In the past week, Eurasia has given us intelligence of a potential ZAFT operation within Earth orbit, one that will far surpass the scale of the Victoria landings. These reports would become true as earlier today, over 1000 ships, a majority of the ZAFT fleet, left L5 with a majority heading to the destination of Earth Orbit, while a splinter force is making its way to the moon, most likely to reinforce Lorentz. While an OMNI battlegroup has been formed to take care of Orbital Fleet, that still leaves the ZAFT forces in Lorentz and L5, which have been drastically reduced and now split apart from one another. We shall take the former, and within the next 48 hours embark on an operation to once and for all destroy the Lorentz base."

"Twenty bucks." Rick softly whispered to Norman in reference to his previously commented bet.

_'But I didn't even agree.'_ Thought Norman.

"We all know what this means people, with ZAFT escalating the fight, Alliance Command has decided to take off the kids gloves and we are now back on total war with ZAFT. With our enemy divided their forces and spreading them throughout the Earth sphere, we shall be able to strike them one by one and end this war by summer. Here's how we are going to-" Commander Lindgren would not be able to finish that sentence, as at that exact same moment the clock struck midnight, and a miraculous event that would forever change human history would occur.

In one moment, the entire Squadron was fine, in the next an agonizing pain tore apart the souls of the majority of the squadron, forcing most to collapse on the floor, Norman watching as both Mu and Rick slammed forward on the steel surface, both moving as if they were having in the middle of the seizure. Up on the officer's podium, Norman saw Lindgren catch Commander Madon before he fall, the latter hollering as if he were being tortured, clawing at his own hair like a madman.

"THEY'RE MASSACRING US! IT'S A TRAP"

"NO! I'M NOT GOING TO DIE TO SOME GODDAMN TEST TUBE!"

"ENDYMION'S LOST, WE HAVE TO EVACUATE COMMANDER!"

Norman, along with a small minority of his fellow pilots, heard these screams and many others take place from the numerous victims of the sudden seizures, most of whom acting like they were in the heat of battle or were hollering about themselves dying or witnessing another person being killed.

"FUCK YOU ZAFT! This is for Norman!" Norman heard Rick shout his name, proclaiming it like he was about to avenge him, even though he was standing right next to him.

The only one who didn't seem to be hollering like a maniac was Mu, who was curled up and crying uncontrollably, his right hand reaching out, desperate to grab something that was not there. "I'm here Murrue, I'm never going to leave you again, **I promise.**" Mu whimpered, a sight that Norman never thought he would see.

Norman stood frozen, panicking over the sight before him, a great irony for a tested veteran who had never once succumbed to pressure during battle. However, what was taking place before him felt unnatural, wrong. "What the hell is going on?!" Norman shouted, a question that nobody had an ability to provide an answer for.

Little did Zero Squadron know that what they were experiencing was an act that would soon be experienced by hundreds of millions from two worlds. It was an event that would radically change human history and leave the Cosmic Era unrecognizable from before. It was the April Fools Miracle.

**March 31st, 70 CE. 5:50 P.M. Western Atlantic Standard. Allster Family Plantation. Manassas, Virginia. Atlantic Federation. Flay Allster POV**

In the kitchen of the Allster residence, a young girl with flaming red hair sat at the kitchen table, head laying down next to an opened history textbook, _"The Atlantic Federation: A Modern History"_ lying beside her on her left. To her right was a glass of a fruit smoothie that was entirely empty, and within the rest of the kitchen was little else except the vast quantities of food and cooking materials, while the small kitchen tv was on at a low volume, it was currently playing a reality dating show that Flay would've normally been glued to, were it not for herself being bored out of her mind at the current moment, leaving the tv as nothing but static to her ears.

Flay groaned,"Why do I have to study this nonsense? It's useless on the job market and most of the information is irrelevant to know." She asked rhetorically. There was no one at the moment to offer company, the only other occupants of the manor being some of her family's servants, who were all busy doing jobs in other places at the moment. Flay had tried to get her best friends, Jenna and Sasha to come over so that way they could study together, and hopefully drop it after a while and then move onto actually exciting activities, but unfortunately her friends had rejected her invitation and said they had other plans at the moment.

While Flay was far from failing student, she was nowhere near an honor roll at the same time, having average to poor grades in her core subjects, math being the only exception where she at least got low A's, while she shined in electives that she had an active interest in such as drama. While she had already got accepted into her dream college, UCLA, and already had major plans for a fashion degree, she had few final exams that she was exempt from which meant that she had to cram on the books if she was to still keep her GPA high and retain her acceptance.

History was always a rough subject for Flay as she found the concept of having to remember past events that had no relation to her extremely tiring, many times in history class saw herself fall nearly to sleep on the sheer doldrums of the experience. On average Flay made low B's in the class, the main reason for this was because despite the subject being worthless into her mind, Flay put in a decent amount of effort in order to keep up appearances for her father. It would be nothing but a complete embarrassment for the daughter of the Deputy Secretary of State to be unable to remember the Presidents of the nation or the laws and major events of the past seventy years. Her father did a wonderful job at helping to teach her when he could, though the taxing duties of his post made contact between the two increasingly scarce in recent years, the recent war with the Coordinators only driving that contact into near-nonexistence as George Allster had to be constantly present within the State Department or traveling in order to help keep the Earth Alliance running smoothly.

_'Stupid ZAFT. Why are they fighting a war they can't win?'_ The answer was pretty obvious to Flay, to impose their superiority upon Naturals even after they got to create their perfect society in space.

Flay was really glad that there were hardly any Coordinators left in the Atlantic Federation. It was just impossible to have superhumans live with normal people when the supermen would always dominate and crush their neighbors in the end. As a young adult Flay had to fight hard to get into her college of choice against countless students across the nation, herself sadly suspecting that her father's influence was the sole reason she got in. If Flay wasn't born into one of Virginia's most distinguished political dynasties, then she would be a nobody who would never accomplished anything in life. If she was a Natural in a world of Coordinators, then she would be less than worthless in a gene pool filled to the brim with perfection.

Flay's melancholy was interrupted when she heard the sound of footsteps enter the area. She lifted her head up from the table to look towards the kitchen entrance, her mood rapidly transforming in a complete 180 to joy, her father George Allster was standing at the entrance, briefcase in hand and wearing a light blue suit, apparently coming home from work when Flay hadn't expected him at all.

"Daddy!" Flay shouted with the excitement of a child, running up and jumping into her father, giving him a great bear hug. "Why didn't you tell me that you were coming home from work? Did you eat yet, can we have dinner together? Let's watch a movie later." These and countless other comments ran from Flay's mouth, her speech only slowing down when she slowly noticed an increasing amount of sorrow and regret on her father's face.

"Hello sweetie, how was your day?" George Allster asked, a tone of hesitation in his voice.

_'He's avoiding the questions.'_ Flay thought sadly, a situation that she had experienced multiple times once again coming to fruition. _'Then again, why should I have expected today to be different.'_

"Fine." Flay simply answered, her voice having lost the energy she had previously held seconds ago.

George looked over at the kitchen table, seeing the half opened textbook. "Flay were you studying for your finals, or were you _studying_ for your finals?" George asked.

"I was studying, I promise!" Flay swore, though she neglected the fact that she had barely finished a chapter and didn't get much progress beyond it. "Daddy, you are staying home for tonight, right?" Flay asked, puppy eyes starting to form as she silently begged her father to stay, if only for a little while.

A heavy sigh from George was all the answer that Flay needed. "I'm sorry Flay, I had to come home to get some drives from my office, I came by the kitchen to get a small drink before I headed back to the Department." George explained, his sad tone showing that if he would've clearly liked to spend the night with his daughter if he had the opportunity.

With verbal confirmation, Flay became entirely dejected, tears starting to well up in her eyes. George saw this and wrapped his daughter in a tight hug, "I know, I know. I wish I could stay here, but something _big_ is happening in the war right now, something that will eclipse...Junius Seven." George said, a slight amount of disgust entering in his voice upon mentioning the nuke that would make Valentine's Day an infamous holiday for generations. "I'm going to be needed at the Capitol to help with the aftermath, so I might not be able to come back for the next couple of days. I can't reveal too much about what's happening, but if everything goes right then the war might end in a couple of months. How about this, when the war ends and everything settles over, we can take a nice long vacation together. We can go wherever you want, on Earth or in space. How does that sound?" George asked, smiling in the hopes that he would cheer his daughter up.

Unfortunately for him, Flay was little reassured by the sudden promise. She knew that whenever her father made a promise that he truly meant it, but most of the time he wouldn't be able to go through with it. Some crisis in the PLANTs, a trade dispute, some sort of space negotiations, etc. Almost always though it had to be something about Coordinators.

_'They always ruin everything.'_ Flay thought.

Still, she could at least indulge in her father's hopes, even if the likelihood of that happening was near zero. "That sounds great." Flay said, putting up a fake smile. "Can we go to-"George Allster would never receive her instant as in that precise moment, Flay was experiencing a miraculous event that was happening to tens of millions of people around the Earth sphere.

Flay's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she lost all sense of balance, falling back and potentially hitting the floor if she wasn't already in her father's arms. Flay started shaking uncontrollably, with whimpers morphing into loud screams as the awakening of her soul brought about a great pain to the young girl.

"Oh my God, FLAY!" George gently laid down her daughter on the floor, doing his best to make sure she didn't receive any physical injuries while she still shook uncontrollably. When she was settled down, George whipped out his mobile phone and called 911. "Hello, my daughter is daughter is having a seizure, she's shaking uncontrollably. I don't know what to do, you have to send an ambulance right now.

While George was pleading with the emergency services to get to the plantation yesterday, Flay's life was flashing before her eyes, literally as she was watching the most major events of her life happen as if she was watching a film. Though a film wouldn't quite be the experience Flay should properly describe it as since instead of watching her life unfold on a two-dimensional screen, she was watching everything take place around her, as if she was an absent observer, unable to interact yet always present.

The strangest part for Flay was that events were happening which she was sure should never took place in her life. She saw herself boarding a shuttle to enter into space, an impossibility considering she has always been on Earth her entire life. She saw herself traveling to a space colony, not the hour glasses of the PLANTs, but an O'Neil cylinder where inside she was met with a tropical paradise. She saw herself attending school, not the college of her dreams, but some technical school, something that didn't make sense considering she had no skills in STEM fields. She saw herself spending time with some unknown boy, an awkward nerd with who she was trapped in a loveless engagement that she had no say in. Occasionally she caught glimpses of some boy of Asian descent, watching her from afar with feelings of love and jealousy. Despite the fact that she never met this boy, seeing him brought about strong feelings within Flay, feelings of anger and hate, yet morphed with love and sorrow.

Flay then saw herself running through the colony, desperately trying to escape a sudden attack on her own as giant humanoid machines traveled throughout the colony, laying death to its inhabitants, two of Flay's companions, once again who she had no knowledge of, having already been claimed. Flay was able to escape in a shelter, awaiting for hours in terror while being isolated in a group of strangers, until they were miraculously saved, the boy who she felt so strongly about yet never met coming as her savior.

The scene then shifted to what appeared to be a bridge of a warship. Despite once again never having been to here, Flay had feelings of familiarity overwhelm here. Flay felt a stronger connection to this place than all the other unknown places, yet it was a strange feeling, as if it were a home that she once had, yet it was one that she despised and was terrified of.

She saw herself drifting into the bridge, a pink girl in a flowing white dress held in her right hand. At first she was incredibly confused on why she was in the company of this girl, though a sudden realization came through Flay.

_"Isn't that Lacus Clyne?"_ Flay asked herself, though no one on the bridge seemed to notice her presence. Flay may have thought that Lacus' songs were a bit trashy, but she wasn't so ignorant as to be unaware of one of the most popular pop singers in the Earth sphere. Why was she on the bridge of a warship with her, a Coordinator?

_"I'll kill this girl!"_ The other Flay shouted, shocking the inhabitants of the bridge as well as the spiritual Flay. _"If they fire at my Daddy's ship, I'll kill this girl! Tell them that."_ The second Flay said with determination. The first Flay was confused, she may not have liked Lacus, or Coordinators in general, but to kill this girl in cold blood? The thing that struck her most was that she said "Daddy's ship", this caused Flay to turn around and look at the bridge monitor, where she saw a Drake-class ship battling with ZAFT mobile suits. Despite never experiencing this, Flay _knew_ that her father was on that ship.

"No, this is isn't real, it's a dream, it has to be." Flay whispered in utter horror. Said dream would turn into an incredible nightmare, when Flay witnessed the ship her father was on explode into flames as a shot from the ZAFT beam canon tore it apart. Flay saw the beam take her father directly in a hanger, incinerating him into ashes within nanoseconds.

"No. No." Flay said to herself shaking her head as tears formed into her eyes. **"NOOOOOO! DAAADDYYY!"** She yelled in pure terror, feeling her father's death reach out to her and causing Flay to collapse in pure pain and agony.

The pain brought about by feeling her father's death brought Flay back to the present, where she saw her father cradling her in her arms. "It's okay baby, the ambulance is coming and we'll take you to the hospital, the doctors will fix you, okay." George said in a whimper, tears falling down his eyes with the words mostly being said to convince him that everything would be alright.

Seeing her father alive again after she _felt_ him die broke Flay. She flailed her arms wildly at him, trying desperately to hold onto him and never let her father go. "Don't die Daddy! Don't go, don't let the Coordinators kill you! Please Don't Die! Please Don't Die! Please Don't Die! Please Don't Die!" Flay repeated this words in the manner of a mantra for the next minute, disturbing her father as George tried desperately to calm her down and reassure her that he wasn't going anywhere. In the end, exhaustion overtook Flay and she once again fell on the floor, this time blackness consuming her vision, then Flay was at rest.

**April 1st, 70 CE. 1:30 A.M. Colonial Standard. **_**PLSF Peng Duhai.**_** L4. Captain Jun Jie POV**

When Jun Jie had been assigned to the L4 Cluster as the Captain of the 9th Fleet's flaghship carrier the _Peng Duhai_, he had been jubilant. While Jie was a proud patriot who would do whatever his nation would ask of him, he was admittedly a man who was far removed from the hawkishness that seemed to fester among most of his fellow officers. Jun Jie was a man who above all else wished for a quiet and peaceful service. Being stationed in the L4 cluster provided that sense of calm stability.

While being stationed in the L4 garrisons was often considered a punishment for soldiers of the People's Army, being stationed in the L4 fleet was considered to be a silent blessing. In L4, the sailors of the Space Force were far removed from the hostile brinkmanship of the Second Cold War that had taken place for the last three and a half decades. Neither the Atlantic Federation or Eurasian Union had a vested interest in L4, content to let East Asia dominate the Lagrange Point. Soldiers in the L4 cluster were also isolated from the growing crisis that was the PLANT cluster in L5.

When the PLANT program had begun, East Asia had sent all of their Coordinators to the PLANTs in order to separate them from the citizens on Earth so that social harmony could be maintained. While there had been some who advocated to have East Asia's Coordinators live in the L4 cluster, it was shot down hard by most of the People's Congress and the ruling Communist party as too radical and dangerous to implement. The entire reason the L4 colonies existed (as publicly explained by East Asia) was to separate Korean and Japanese Nationalists from loyal citizens on Earth. Combining these dangerous elements with Coordinators would be nothing short of a catastrophe for the nation as it was explained in state-propaganda. Though this would've always been an impossibility due to the L4 colonists existing distrust and bigotry towards Coordinators.

Even when the PLANT crisis had dramatically escalated in recent years, life for the People's Liberation Army Space Force (PLASF) had continued on as normal, with the only excitement of their tours of service being the occasional contraband check of passing ships, tailing a Atlantic or Eurasian vessel that veered too close to L4, or the rare pirate that dared to raid on East Asian shipping. Then came the war.

So far most action had been limited to L5 or lunar orbit, though that wasn't to say that there hadn't been any action taking place in L4. In the past six weeks, ZAFT had been attempting to probe the defenses of L4, occasionally sending a flotilla to hunt down isolated East Asian ships or supply vessels, then run away before the full fleet could catch up to them. From what Jun Jie had heard from his superiors, the most likely theory was that ZAFT was testing the fleet so that they could plan for a operation aimed at launching an insurrection inside of the cluster's colonies.

Outside of a minor skirmish with a couple of Nazca class ships, Jie had not seen any action so far in the war. This was something that he had hoped would happen for the rest of the war unless ZAFT really did attempt to support an insurrection among the colonies.

That was until the events of the last twelve hours, then Jun Jie's world slowly spiraled into hell.

It had all started when the 9th Fleet had received word from Eurasian Intelligence that a large ZAFT fleet containing nearly 900 vessels was making their way to Earth orbit. Why ZAFT made the idiotic decision to send more than half of their entire Space Force to be concentrated in one place near Earth escaped Jie. His most likely hypothesis was that after the failure of Victoria, ZAFT was going to attempt to reach a decisive end to the conflict by taking out all of the Alliance's Mass Drivers at the same time. It was incredibly suicidal to Jie with almost zero chance of victory, though if by some divine intervention it were to succeed then the war would admittedly sway in the Coordinator's favor. Upon learning of this grand fleet's target, the Alliance had scrambled to provide some sort of counter strategy and wake up from the phony war that the diplomats had put them in.

Fortunately for Jie, the 9th fleet wouldn't be part of the immediate response fleet with an OMNI-led battle coalition of 6,000 sortieing to meet ZAFT's forces, while the Lunar fleets would dispatch to destroy the Lorentz base while ZAFT was split between whatever was going on in orbit and defending L5. However, a fraction of the 9th fleet, including the _Peng Duhai_, was chosen by New Beijing to be part of a reserve relief force to help the OMNI coalition should the orbital campaign be botched somehow. This meant for several hours Jie had to split his attention between keeping the _Duahi_ battle-ready at a moment's notice, and participating in coordinating the fleet to plan for the hypothetical relief, plotting all the worst scenarios and how they would help their allies.

While this had been greatly tiring for Jie, it was all part of his expected duties as a servant of the nation, and as such he soldiered through. Besides, when the Alliance obliterated ZAFT both on the moon and in orbit, the war would inevitably end within the next month or two, so it would all be worth it.

Then the..._event_ happened and the war had just got extremely complicated fast.

Jie had been at watch on the bridge at exactly midnight, as such he got to be one of tens of thousands who were able to personally witness one of the brightest flashes of light to ever be observed by the human eye, with a large asteroid and over 1200 ships were planted on the edge of the L4 mere moments after, seemingly appearing out of thin air. With the extensive satellite network that East Asia had in place around L4, it was impossible that an asteroid along with one of the largest individual fleets ever assembled could've snuck into East Asian space, let alone travel across the Earth sphere with no detection.

The sight of so many ships, none of which were East Asian, filled the fleet with high amounts of panic and hysteria. Admiral Chen Baoyi, Jie's superior, had attempted to contact New Beijing as well as the Atlantic and Eurasian bases to see if it was somehow an brand new Alliance fleet that had been equipped with stealth technology. Unfortunately, every member of the Alliance swore that the fleet was not of their own creation. It was a disturbing revelation, though in hindsight they should have known better with the images of mobile suits that seemed to act as some kind of successor to the GINN. Satellite imagery of a similar fleet composition at L5 confirmed what everyone had feared, this was a ZAFT fleet. Somehow without anyone of the sponsor nations knowing, ZAFT had been able to double their space forces with brand new models and stealth technology.

Word of this new development spread through the fleet like a wildfire and a state of chaos was on the rise.

Had it just been the addition of these two mysterious ZAFT stealth fleets, then maybe Jie could feel even the tiniest sense of calmness. Outside of the stealth tech, the new ships had mobile suits had to be of a similar quality to their known predecessors, which meant that all the 9th Fleet had to do was wait for lunar reinforcements and they could eliminate this new fleet and nuke the asteroid base to oblivion. Unfortunately, the appearance of these stealth fleets weren't the only bizarre occurrence at midnight. At the same time, thousands of personnel scattered throughout the fleet had experienced some sort of mass seizure, thousands of varying ages, genders, ranks, occupations, had at the same instant collapsed in fits of mass pain. The intensity of this event varied throughout each person, to some it was mere migraines and to others they howled as if they were being tortured. While Jie had not witnessed this phenomena personally, there had been nine individuals on the _Duhai_ who had been inflicted by this mysterious malaise.

With the appearance of two stealth fleets and some unknown disease spreading around, order was starting to collapse completely and Jie was being confronted with officers and enlisted personnel on an almost minute basis, everyone demanding answers for what was going on. Unfortunately, Jie was just as lost as the rest of them. For the past hour, Jie had been desperately trying to keep some semblance of order on the ship, preparing them for a potential conflict against the unknown fleet while Admiral Chen had been busy contacting New Beijing and L41 to try and get some sort of series of orders on how to next proceed. What worried Jie was that this had taken over an hour, when Chen was usually proficient and his calls only lasted ten to twenty minutes, that meant that something big was going on, Jie fearing that the war had just taken the turn for the absolute worst case scenario very fast.

Fortunately Jie would get some answers soon, as he was called to Chen's cabin for a personal briefing, presumably to let him be the first to fill him in on what was going on.

Jie had made it to Chen's cabin, buzzing on the intercom to let it know that it was him. "Sir, this is Captain Jun reporting as ordered." Jie said.

The door opened with a light woosh and Jie was let inside, seeing Admiral Chen sitting at his desk, a bottle with clear liquid sitting on his desk along with a small shot glass. The sight caused a great amount of concern to fill Jie. While he had seen the Admiral drink, it had only been in official officer's parties and in meetings with fellow admirals of the fleet along with flag officers from luna and the colonies, and the occasional politician or intelligence boss that made their way to space. Never once in private had Jie seen Admiral Chen consume alcohol in private when there wasn't a need, meaning that there was something _really_ bad going on.

"Take a seat." Admiral Chen ordered, then pulling up a second glass and filling it up slightly with what Jie observed as Mijiu when he got close enough. The reason that Chen was able to do this without the Mijiu floating in several drops was due to the unique design of both the bottle and the glass, with the bottle having a tiny hole from which the liquid would pore out, that would pour into another small hole that was located on a cap on top of the glass, one that would only open when the cap made contact with the bottle's top, this way the glass could still be used, but one had to drink out of it with a straw or from a small opening in the manner of a child with a sippy cup. Of course one could consume liquor in space when it floated, a rather popular method for the enlisted that Jun may have partaken in a time or two.

Knowing not to disobey his superior, Jie took the glass and slowly drank out of it. He sat down on the chair, holding himself in place by connecting the seatbelt located on it.

"Captain, how has my ship been in this past hour?" Admiral Chen asked, starting off the conversation.

"To put it bluntly sir, the crew is in a state of constant anxiety and near panic. Word is starting to spread of the new fleet, and the simultaneous seizure of so many of our fellow sailors has many whispering of some sort of bio-weapon in play. The crew are doing their duties, but they'll need answers soon or else morale will break down completely and we may have a mutiny on our hands." Jie informed. A mutiny was the worst possible scenario when the unknown fleet could come out and attack them at any time, the capabilities of the new ships still being complete unknowns.

As a credit to many years of his service, Admiral Chen took in the information calmly with no outward signs of panic, despite the fact that the fleet he led was near to breaking at any moment. "I'm afraid I must take responsibility for keeping the fleet in the dark, but I'm afraid that this war has gone in a new and bizarre direction that we could have never anticipated. I've been trying to find answers, but even the barest hints have been giving me ten questions in this past hour, and by the end of the day, I don't think we'll still get a fraction of the greater picture. As the Atlanteans say, 'Shit just hit the fan', which was why I wanted to wait so long to at least get some semblance of a direction." Chen explained. Jie was hating where this conversation was going, a knot forming in his stomach as his worst fears were beginning to materialize.

"First off, let me share the good news. Doctor Wang has sent me a report confirming that there are no signs of a bio agent anywhere within those afflicted with the seizures, or anywhere within the ship. If ZAFT, the Nationalists, Atlantic Federation, or Eurasia is behind this, then they've done a _damned good_ job at their latest work. It is possible that there is a bio-weapon and we are unable to detect it, we aren't a first class hospital after all, so we'll need to send the patients back to the lunar colonies if we want to get definitive answers, though that might not be necessary considering...developments. So far only one of the patients has become conscious again, though questioning has been inconclusive. The person in question is an MA pilot, and after he came through apparently he acted as if he was afflicted with PTSD, even though he's fresh from the academy and hasn't a single hour of hard combat. He's just been whimpering non-stop about 'dying at the hands of ZAFT', probably some kind of nightmare. This Captain, is all the good news that I am about to share with you." Chen said.

Jie's fists tightened, he found himself swiftly consuming the Mijiu and wishing for more shots. "Admiral, you said that sending the patients to the lunar colonies would not be necessary?" Jie ventured.

Chen nodded at his question. "Observant, that's what I like about you Jun. Yes, it won't be necessary, this leads me to my next piece of information, which may or may not depending on how this develops, may be the _least_ of the bad news. The seizures that have struck our fleet, we are not the only victims. The colonies that we are guarding have seen hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of cases spring up across the seven colonies. Not only has this inflicted the army, but also the Koreans and Japanese. I wasn't able to get into contact with any of our generals, but from what little I was able to gather, riots have arisen in every street at a scale and brutality never before seen. We may be seeing the beginnings of a war, an outright rebellion the likes of which unseen since Japan's Reconstruction."

Jie looked at the Admiral, horrified with all color draining from his skin. "How is this possibly the _least_ of the bad news?" Jie asked with total fear. What was happening right now, was a nuclear war happening across the Earth, was the entire politburo assassinated, was there some sort of coup?

"I'm not finished." Chen said, his words making Jie extremely nauseous at a fast rate. "Not only were we afflicted, not only was the L4 cluster afflicted, but the lunar cities, and all of Earth has been inflicted with this great calamity. I have seen a few news reports, and it seems that you can find a case of this in every one of the major cities. Order is breaking down and chaos arising. It's far worse than the Type 2 Flu. All of humanity is infected with whatever this virus is, no one is truly safe." Chen said somberly.

Bile threatened to rise at Jie's throat, forcing him to swallow it down so that he could continue on with the briefing. Like anyone else who was of a teenager and older, Jie had lived through the Type 2 epidemic, the flu that had claimed the lives of 250 million people. It was a time of great terror throughout the world, with many fearing that the apocalypse was taking place and this would be the end for mankind. Jie knew several who were infected, and a few who had died. Back then, he didn't believe the claims that this was a Coordinator weapon, but if the world was truly suffering from a new pandemic where millions were struck at the exact same moment, then maybe the Coordinators were responsible for both. They had to be, as there was no one else with the capabilities, but most importantly the intelligence to see such a thing through.

Most of all, Jie feared for the safety and health of his wife, their two little girls, and both their parents who resided within New Beijing.

"Admiral, How is this the least bad news?" Jie once again asked with urgency. Where he not asking his superior officer, he would've likely thrown in a few curse words for good measure.

"Because, as of right now, this new virus has not caused any fatalities besides putting its victims in very unfortunate situations where their incapacitation has put them into dangerous situations. The reason this is possibly the least bad news is because of the immediate threat posed to us. At the same time as this unknown fleet showed up on our doorstep and all of these seizures were taking place, Alliance satellites picked up two new formations in other parts of the Earth sphere. one was at L5, with a fleet and asteroid matching the unknowns staring us off." Chen typed away at his computer, then turning the monitor to give Jie a good look. True to his word, the fleets and mobile suits, were identical to the ones facing them off. The only major difference was the asteroid which had a major difference in composition, appearing in the shape of a star instead of the rough dagger that was facing them off in L4. Though the difference in appearance made sense as asteroids were about as similar to one another as snowflakes were to each other.

"So this is ZAFT's doing. It has to be." Jie affirmed, if the ships appeared in L4 and it was not of East Asian creation, and they also appeared in L5, then the fleet had to be the Coordinators invention. Yet there was also a distinct impossibility that Jie had to keep in mind. ZAFT's current vessels outside of the new stealth ships were converted freighters that were most likely connected with weaponry at the turn of the decade. The new ships that Jie clearly saw were made for one purpose only, war. The fact that both these fleets combined doubled ZAFT's current numbers, and there was no way they would've been able to afford such an economic undertaking without obvious transfers of hundreds of billions, if not trillions of Yuan. That was not factoring in the asteroids either, which had to be carried in from the Belt and would be impossible to miss by satellites.

"It's the explanation I wish we could use, but from the last and most important piece of news I am about to show you, there's no telling just who has been behind these recent developments. At midnight, when all of this was happening, the lunar bases detected a sharp spike in communications on the far side and in L2. Satellites in L2 along with radar stations on the far side took these images, and what they have observed is simply impossible." Chen said gravely.

He typed in a few more commands into his computer, with the old images of the stealth fleets fading and new ones popping up instantaneously. What Jie saw were images of a third fleet, this time with numbers easily exceeding the first two which were centered around a _third_ asteroid that was shaped in the manner of a cone. To Jie's immense displeasure, these weren't the most shocking things that he saw. What really took the cake where images of_ hundreds_ of colonies that had never before existed in L2, colonies that when combined would most likely outnumber both the PLANTs and the Earth colonies _combined_. They were not the traditional open cylinder O'Neils or the hourglasses of the PLANTs, instead these were closed type O'Neils, a design that had never once been put into production in the history of the Cosmic Era. Then there were a few images that especially caught Jie's eye, images of several sprawling lights illuminating an industrial surface that was surrounded by pitch blackness. These were lunar cities, on the far side of the moon, when all of the members of the Alliance had strictly prohibited settlement of the far side in the numerous colonization treaties.

Were Jie anything other than an experienced officer of the East Asian People's Liberation Army Space Force, then he would've most likely been struck with a sudden panic attack due to the sheer shock of the information that he had just been divulged. As it was, it was a miracle that he was still anywhere near remotely functioning.

"Permission to speak freely sir." Jie asked with his voice trembling, Chen nodding silently. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" Jie shouted at the top of his lungs, the exclamation echoing throughout the cabin, but Admiral Chen appearing unfazed with not even the slightest bit of insult at his Captain's outburst. "I can expect ZAFT somehow producing one stealth fleet, maybe even two. But three with three complimentary asteroids as fortresses, a plague that has somehow infected the entire Earth sphere with precision timing, _and hundreds_ of space colonies?! Sir, I took a couple of engineering forces in the Academy, and I wrote a paper on the construction of space colonies and their strategic importance. The construction of even one is a severe strain on the national budget. The construction of hundreds would easily dwarf the entire Earth sphere's annual GDP. Even if these space colonies were somehow hollow with barely anything on the inside, it would still cost tens of trillions of Yuan just to produce. Either I am going through some sort of bizarre nightmare, or this reality as we know it has lost all semblance of sanity!" Jie said, finishing his rant with short breath. Remembering his position, he became extremely flustered and bowed in position to apologize, only to find Chen holding up his hand in acceptance.

"I forgive you Captain for your outburst, as anything less would be disturbing in this situation. At this point I do not know what to make of any of this. There are no logical or possible answers, and the best I can possibly think of is some sort of alien invasion is occurring, an alien invasion. Wouldn't be too outlandish with how much this is becoming some cliche Hollywood film. Unless we get answers within the next minute, I'm at a complete loss on how to organize the fleet."

As if Chen's answer was being answered from the heavens, his intercom flashed a warning with what appeared to be a call from the bridge. Chen responded quickly, then putting it on speaker to allow Jie to hear.

"Admiral Chen, this is Lieutenant Liu speaking." Said the ship's chief communications officer.

"This is the Admiral, I have Captain Jun with me in my cabin. What is the issue?"

"Sir, we've received a message from the unknown fleet, they've been broadcasting it on all frequencies, but haven't used any PLA or known Alliance codes." This new piece of information caused both officers to bolt upright in attention.

"What is the fleet saying? Are they with us, or ZAFT?" Jie asked, desperate for any kind of information that would shed light on recent events.

"I...I don't know. It's just been a single message on repeat, and the message is being played in English but not with any accent I've heard of. I can't make sense of what the person is saying, however I shall transmit the message directly to your cabin Admiral."

"Do it, as soon as the Captain and I have heard the message, we shall make our way to the bridge." Thankfully both Chen and Jie, like an overwhelming majority of officers in the PLA, spoke English, Chen speaking it fluently while Jie had a bit of an accent tied to his speech. So they would be more than capable of understanding the message.

The Lieutenant replied and within seconds the message was transmitted to Chen's computer. Chen moved his mouse and clicked on a new file. When he had the recording play, a deep masculine voice spoke in English with an untraceable accent.

"_Unidentified ships and colonies, this is Admiral Wilhelm Lutjens, Commanding Officer of the Zeon Space Force Third Fleet and Commander of the Space Fortress Pezun. Over an hour ago we have experienced some sort of...event, where we now find ourselves in a Lagrange point completely differing from what had previously inhabited. To the unidentified ships and colonies, I request that you please state your identification and affiliation, and whether or not you serve the Riah Republic, Hatte Autonomous Republic, or the Earth Federation, specifically the Earth Federation Space Force in regards to the unknown fleet. We request that this be done as soon as possible to avoid any incidents. I repeat, this is Admiral Wilhelm Jutjens, Commanding Officer of the Zeon Space Force Third Fleet and Commander of the Space Fortress Pezun..."_

Both Jie and Chen looked towards one another, looks of complete bewilderment sporting their faces.

"So...aliens?" Jie offered.

Chen sighed, "We're going to need to finish this bottle."

**A/N:  
And that's the end of Chapter 3, with our first introduction with the Earth Alliance side of characters. As a whole I'm looking forward to fleshing out and expanding upon the workings of the Alliance and its member-states and how they deal with working with and against each other while waging a total war against ZAFT. I'm aiming for a slightly nuanced portrayal of a divided coalition with a diverse membership of servicemen with differing ideals and personalities versus the monolithic Nazis that Destiny presented them as. We'll take a hard look into both the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Alliance, and see how Earth came to be the way it is in the Cosmic Era.**

**Both Norman Smith and Enrique Seguin are OC's of mine. With the POD being almost two months before Endymion, Zero Squadron and Mu's relation with its various members will be a prominent POV of the Alliance and many of the Zero pilots will become key players in the war to come. For those who disappointed with Mu's lack of presence, don't worry as I plan for him to be a heavy regular in the POV's to come. The Hawk of Endymion will have his time to shine.**

**I know that some of you will comment that Flay is not a Newtype in canon, and you are right. Flay was never a Newtype in canon, but she is **_**becoming**_** one in this story, as I mentioned in the last chapter on how several Newtypes were having their powers expanded, and Oldtypes were transforming into Newtypes. Many Oldtypes in both CE and Zeon will become Newtypes in the story, all being side effects of the event that has just taken place.**

**As for Flay's character section, with her I wanted to go in a unique direction that strays away from the usual fannons that fics like to portray her as being on one of two ends of a spectrum. Either Flay Allster is an irredeemable racist bitch, or she's a purity sue who can do no wrong. For me I want to show what Flay was like as a person well before the events of Heliopolis, mainly a spoiled and sheltered girl who is a heavy product of her environment. Yes she is prejudiced, but she is a citizen of a nation heavily influenced by a genoist KKK, it's honestly quite shocking that almost all of the Archangel was super progressive when the rest of the Alliance was portrayed as extremely bigoted in the anime. Right now without Flay being thrust into a war or watching her father die in front of her eyes, she hasn't been radicalized yet and for the most part is a normal girl. Though where her journey leads is going to radically change from here on, especially with her now being a Newtype. I intend to explore Flay, as well as her father George, very deeply as we progress on in the fic with what I hope is an original and interesting portrayal.**

**Captain Jun Jie and Admiral Chen Baoyi are both OC's of mine, and are the first glimpses of what life is like for a soldier of the Republic of East Asia, a nation which is essentially an imperialist PRC ruling over a reversed Co-Prosperity sphere. In my opinion, it's an extreme shame that while SEED was the first war Gundam that took place in a multi-polar world, the series quickly became a diet UC with the Earth Alliance being a highly bland replica of the Earth Federation and the only presence of the multi-polar environment being Orb, with Eurasia, East Asia, and the rest of the Alliance, ZAFT's allies and neutrals being completely forgotten and handwaved into subservient lapdogs of the Atlantic Federation or deep enemies, yet all of this being background material in comparison to AF vs. ZAFT with Orb saving the day. I for one intend to look deeply into all of the nations present in the Cosmic Era, with each one leaving their mark on the conflict and being deeply changed by the presence of Zeon. East Asia for one will be a major player instead of off-screen nobodies, and along with Eurasia and South Africa will be just as involved as the Atlantic Federation in the war. Zeon presenting new fates for all of the Alliance members. We'll see more of Jie in the future, as well as other East Asian citizens of various backgrounds and what part they have to play in the greater conflict.**

**Next chapter we will be getting back with the Zabis and seeing their first reactions, and afterword we'll jump towards Operation Uroboros and how it plays out both in space and on Earth. After Uroboros, the fun begins with everyone becoming fully aware of Zeon, for the better and worse of all sides.**

**Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more!**


	4. Spacenoids in Another World

**April 1st, 70 CE. Solomon. Lagrange 5. Dozle Zabi POV**

As far as potential deaths went, Dozle Zabi would later remark that his last minute in the Universal Century was far from one of the worst case scenarios that he could've found himself in. While he was still a young man who fell victim to a cosmic phenomena that he had no control over, his last moments were spent with the love of his life in his arms, both spouses at peace. To Dozle, that would've been a far better way to go out than having his body be obliterated in a Zaku while engaging against the enemy.

Contrary to Dozle's expectations, instead of ending up in the afterlife with Zenna and those who served under him, Dozle instead would wake up in what seemed to be mere seconds to his perception. Regaining consciousness in a manner that felt similar to receiving the worst hangover possible, Dozle slowly began opening his eyes, his eyelids opening and closing in several seconds of daze, before staying open with Dozle finally resuming complete conciousness. Slowly moving his head left and right, his external senses still trying to recover in the aftermath of complete shock, Dozle took note of his immediate surroundings. While it appeared that the command center took no interior damage with the walls, floor, cieling, and various stations and electronic equipment being intact; all around Dozle lied multiple bodies in what seemed to be a state of unconsciousness, or fearfully, death. With his senses returning to him, Dozle felt mild pressure upon his body. Looking down, he saw his wife Zenna, lying seemingly lifeless upon Dozle's chest and torso.

_'No, please no. Whatever happened, do not take her away from me!'_ Dozle internally pleaded.

Now fully awake and alert thanks to a small shot of adrenaline, Dozle positioned himself to seat upward thanks to his back against the wall, carefully moving his hand to Zenna's neck to check for a pulse, his fingers experiencing a slight tremble during the activity. Fortunately, his worst fears were removed when he felt a strong pulse from Zenna, with him further being reassured by observing Zenna's body slowly rising and falling in steady breath.

"You're safe my love." Dozle said gently, giving a light kiss to Zenna's temple while slowly stroking her blonde hair with his massive hands. So long as his wife was by his side then Dozle could endure any attack that came at his way, even some strange chemical or biological attack that the Feddies just concocted.

"This is impossible. How are you two alive?" Feeling as if a bolt of lightning had made contact with him, Dozle's attention was broken away from his wife at the sound of a soft feminine voice a few meters away from him.

Dozle looked away from Zenna and towards the unknown person, his body shaking and livid at what he thought to be the assassin who attempted to kill him and his wife.

"How dare you try to kill my wife, the men serving under me, and myself in such a cowardly attack! You-"Dozle's questioning stopped when he got a good look at the person behind the voice, someone whose presence brought great confusion to Dozle. Instead of facing off with some sort of Federation operative, what he instead found was a small, petite teenage girl. She had light orange hair and green eyes, her outfit consisting of a white shirt, black pants, and a purple shawl.

Observing her face, Dozle was surprised to see the young girl to be highly frightened, looking upon Dozle and Zenna as if she was looking at ghosts. Her entire body was trembling and tears were forming at her eyes.

"Am I dead, is this hell?" The young girl asked in a whimper. The girl's question disturbed Dozle greatly. Not only did she think that she was deceased, but to think that she was in hell? What could this young girl have possibly done to be deserving of such a fate?

For some strange reason, Dozle found himself wanting to do nothing else than to rush to her side in give this girl a hug, to tell her that she was alright and everything would be okay.

"No, you're not dead or in hell. You're within the space fortress Solomon. My name is Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, Prince of the now independent Principality of Zeon. Who are you, how did you make it to the command center? Why are you on this asteroid in the first place?" Dozle asked.

While he did not know every single man and woman who served at Solomon, he knew that there were no teenage civilians who were present at the base. If this was some sort of assassin sent by the Federation, then they were either desperate or just plain horrible at espionage these days.

In response the girl began to cautiously walk back, a look of pure horror forming while a couple of strands of tears were falling. "This isn't real, this is a dream. It has to be." She stated, as if her presence here was an impossibility, one that Dozle partially couldn't argue with.

Gently laying Zenna down, Dozle got up and tried to approach the girl slowly, herself desperately scurrying away and trying to put as much space between the two as possible.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just as lost as you are and I only wish to make sense of what is going on." Dozle said, reaching his hands out to show that he meant no harm, something that did little to nothing to reassure the frightened girl.

"I know I look pretty mean and scary, but I wont bite. Do you have any knowledge of the attack that just took place? If you cooperate I can guarantee your safety and help you get back to your family."

Dozle's words failed to provide any comfort to the girl, who seemed to be growing more hysterical by the second. "No, you're not real, you're dead! You were killed by Amuro Ray on Christmas Eve at the Battle of Solomon. I saw the footage, I watched you die."

Her words gave Dozle great pause and caused him to stop in his footsteps. This girl was stating information that was entirely untrue and had never happened, yet she said it with such fierce certainy that she must've believed it to be fact.

_'Battle of Solomon? Christmas Eve? Amuro Ray?' Dozle thought._

"I'm not dead, I'm right here, talking to you. What's this Battle of Solomon? A state of war doesn't exist yet between the Federation and the Principality. Who are-"

"Dozle? Who are you talking to?" Dozle's questioning was broken by the voice of his beloved, who was now awake behind him. Dozle looked towards the lying Zenna, immense relief and joy present on his face.

"Zenna! You're awake! Zenna, I don't how but this girl somehow made it to the command center and she's claiming that-" Dozle looked away from Zenna and towards the girl, trying to present her to Zenna, only to find himself waving to empty space. Just as she appeared out of thin air, the girl disappeared without a trace, leaving no indication that she was ever here.

"Hello?" Dozle asked, only to be met with stark silence.

"Who was she?" Dozle softly said, completely unaware that he had just met with his future daughter, and that this would not be the last conversation that they would have across time and space.  
**  
April 1st, 70 CE. Parliament. Zum City, Side 3. Principality of Zeon. Gihren Zabi POV**

On the floor of the Parliament, Gihren Zabi stirred, life slowly breathing back to the son of Degwin and heir to the Principality. With an exhausted groan, Gihren became awake and looked out to the scene in front of him. Almost the entirety of the legislative assembly was either passed out or strongly to come to as Gihren was, no one looking to be healthy and alert. What Gihren was seeing was strange to him. Whatever biological or chemical attack that had just taken place, it was the perfect method for the Federation to wipe out Zeon's leadership in one decisive stroke and eliminate its independence as it was born. Yet instead of sending ECOAS or some black ops force to finish the survivors off, Parliament was left in isolation. Perhaps whatever weapon the Federation used was so effective that they thought there would be no survivors. Yet here Gihren was still breathing, along with dozens of others in his immediate viewpoint.

"Why is it so quiet?" Gihren asked himself in a low whisper. Once again if this was an attack then there would surely either be noises of a battle outside of the Parliamentary chambers, or there would be emergency services such as the Royal Guard and Capitol police rushing to contain the situation and help any survivors. Yet aside from some low groans there was complete silence.

Gihren rolled up his sleeve and looked at a wristwatch. According to the timer, merely twenty minutes had passed since Degwin had signed the Declaration. Twenty minutes and no response?

_'The Federation probably attacked all of Zum City. Still, why did they send no one off to finish the job?'_ Gihren thought suspiciously.

With his immediate safety secure, Gihren then tried to see how his family had made it. Looking towards the podium where Kycillia and Garma sat, he could find neither his only sister nor his purple haired half-brother. Most likely they had attempted to escape with the Royal Guard when the attack took place and fell victim when they were outside of the balcony, a rather fortune thing so that they did not fall to their deaths. Kycillia's fate held little care to Gihren, but he at least hoped that Garma made it out okay. He was the only one in the family who still loved and cared for him openly these days. Garma cared for him while Dozle and Kycillia looked towards him with suspicion and hatred respectively, while many times Gihren felt that his own father looked down upon him with disappointment, refusing to see how Gihren's vision would be the best path for mankind, forcing Gihren to fight for every scrap of influence and power instead of being granted it as his natural successor.

_'Kycillia may leave me, but she would never leave father and he would not leave me to rot.'_ Gihren thought, deducing that Kycillia was either still incapacitated or on her way. Gihren could still comfort himself in the knowledge that Degwin cared for him on some level, even if it wasn't the close bond that they used to share several years prior.

Speaking of, Gihren looked down and spotted the Sovereign lying down half a meter before him, his glasses out of his hands and tossed to the side while Degwin's signature cape was slightly ruffled. Rushing down to Degwin with the little energy that he had gained, Gihren checked his father's pulse. He found a steady heartbeat and could hear a soft wheeze in his breathing, a condition caused by his obesity and age.

Gihren let go a breath that he had been holding and sighed in relief at the confirmation.

"The dream of Zeon is still alive." Gihren said to himself with his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he fell back startled as his environment changed and he was no longer within the Chambers of Parliament, rather within the throne room in the Royal Palace.

"What the hell is going on?!" Gihren yelled. This must be some hallucination brought on by the attack, it had to be! People didn't just transport themselves several kilometers into an instant.

When Gihren took in his surroundings, he found something more bizzare. At the center of the room on top of the throne was his father Degwin, and standing before Degwin was...himself? Gihren's other looked to be presenting Degwin with some form of documentation while a large monitor was in the background. The two appeared to be conversing, but Gihren could not hear due to the distance between himself and the scene on the throne.

Deciding to indulge himself until this hallucination was over, Gihren walked over to the scene on the throne. With each step he was able to hear about what the two were speaking of.

_"Gihren, are you familiar with Adolf Hitler?"_ Said "Degwin".

_"Hitler? You mean from the Middle Ages?"_ Said the second Gihren.

The comment from his counterpart caused Gihren to stop in his tracks with bewilderment. The whole conversation was bizarre for him. Firstly the fact that his father would ask him if he knew of Hitler. While Gihren cared little for history as his father did, he was not so ignorant to be unaware of one of humanity's most influential figures. Gihren even had a few books of Nazism and found their rise to power to be an inspiration in his planning for the consolidation of his power within Side 3. Hitler may have lost the war, but he had absolute control over his nation with no domestic force being able to unseat him until his death, something that Hitler admired and tried to repeat with the Zabi dictatorship.

The second strangeness of the conversation was that the second Gihren stated that Hitler was from the Middle Ages, something that Gihren knew was completely false. The Middle Ages were at the turn of the second millennium in the old Anno Domini calendar, not the 20th century which most referred to as World Wars Era. Why would he ever make such a ludicrous statement?

_"Yes, a dictator, completely out of touch with the rest of the world. You seem to be following his footsteps."_ Degwin said.

_"Is that so?"_ said the other Gihren.

This statement caused Gihren to be increasingly more puzzled. What could his father have possibly been referring to? The upcoming Operation Prussian? Sure the Operation may be genocide, Gihren had no shame in admitting such, but it was completely different to Hitler's Holocaust. Hitler had wasted resources killing millions of loyal citizens and potential allies due to asinine and artificial notions of race. Gihren was eliminating the Federation's presence in space while wiping out the corrupted Spacenoids who still clung to Earth's gravity and were beyond saving. Hitler's actions were done for petty delusions, Gihren's would cement Zeon's control of the Earth sphere and eliminate the Federation, leaving the chosen Spacenoids of Zeon to guide humanity towards their future.

_"I established the Principality as a means to unite the Zeons and make the Zeon ideal a reality. But now.."_ Degwin said.

_"Hitler's follower has managed to lead the nation to a dictatorship."_ said the second Gihren.

_"Together with Kycillia."_ Degwin confirmed

_"Yes, just as with the Federation a democracy will only promote weakness. People will only end up destroying each other, as they have done so in this war. I'll be victorious. See for yourself how a Hitler follower fights this war. I depart, to take my command at A Bao Qu."_ The second Gihren said, then leaving down the stairs and making to exit the throne room.

Gihren watched his copy walk out of the room. "Pathetic." He said, scoffing under his breath. Hitler may have been a man whose rule Gihren admired in many respects, but at the end of the day he was a failure whose precious thousand year Reich had been reduced to twelve. Gihren Zabi was a man who refused to follow anyone, much less a two centuries dead failure who shot himself in foot numerous time and squandered away the world when it nearly capitulated before him.

Gihren would not follow Hitler, he would go far beyond him. While Adolf Hitler would fade away with time an obscure footnote in human history, Gihren Zabi would be the man who set humanity on their chosen path to claim the galaxy as their rightful domain. All future generations would look towards Zeon as the shining city upon the hill, a city that was created by Gihren as its architect.

Gihren looked towards his hallucination of a father, who to his horror seemed to be _looking back_.

_"Gihren?"_ He said.

"Wha-" Gihren blinked and within seemingly moments the scene shifted back to Parliament, where Gihren was looking back at his real father who was finally awake.

"My boy, are we dead?" Asked a dazed Degwin, with Gihren laughing back in a bit of mirth.

"No father, the Federation has not claimed us yet." Gihren said, reaching out his right arm which Degwin took, helping the Zabi patriarch to get back up on his feet.

"Gihren! Father!" The two eldest Zabis looked towards the center aisle where Garma was running towards them, tears of joy on his face as he collided with Degwin and gave his father a hug, one that Degwin reciprocated with his favorite son. Behind Garma, Gihren saw Kycillia following slowly with her pistol drawn, scanning the room for threats. There was also a single Royal Guardsmen who was shadowing the two, something that told Gihren that the rest of Kycillia and Garma's detail had yet to make it.

When Kycillia had reached her brothers and father, Gihren noticed his sister give him a disturbed look. This went far beyond their usual spats, with Kycillia observing Gihren as if she was looking him to make some sort of attack, as if he would strike her down at any second. This confused Gihren greatly. While he did enjoy their silent struggle as Kycillia was one to always keep him on his toes, Gihren would never physically assault his sister, especially right after they both fell victim to an attack by the Federation.

"Kycillia." Gihren greeted her neutrally, deciding to wait and see how she would act.

"Gihren." She returned with just as equal of a lack of emotion, not revealing any hint of her current thoughts. "I suppose you are going to chide me for allowing this attack to take place at the Declaration." Kycillia said, most likely a verbal test to gauge how he would act towards her.

While Gihren's first instincts were indeed to blame her for what had taken place, what had just occurred was far beyond a simple slip in security. Kycillia may not have been as skilled as he was, but he respected her enough to know that she was nowhere near incompetent to allow such an attack to occur of such an unprecedented magnitude since the Laplace bombing. "Whatever agent the Federation would concocted, it has gone far beyond conventional biological warfare and was most likely distributed using recently created methods. I can't blame you for not preparing for something that did not exist. Besides, it appears that the Federation was too incompetent to succeed if we have the freedom to carry out a conversation presently." Gihren said.

His response seemed to provoke a surprised reaction from Kycillia, with the spymaster temporarily dropping her cold facade and showing confusion before she quickly reverted to her resting face.

Gihren shook his head, whatever Kycillia was thinking he would deal with it later, for now he had to see to the families safety and bringing swift retribution to the Federation for their heinous attack.

He turned his attention to Garma and Degwin, with Garma surprising his eldest brother with a hug, one that Gihren awkwardly attempted to reciprocate with a light pack on his back.

"When Kycillia and I woke up, we looked down the balcony and saw you two lie limply. I feared the worst and thought that both you and father had died. The damned Federation! To attack us just as we declared independence. Do you think that they launched an attack on Solomon and Pezun? What if they launch the same weapon against Dozle and Zenna?" Garma asked with great worry.

"It'll take a lot to kill a Zabi, Garma. If we are all alive then Dozle and Zenna must be too. If they dare to strike against Solomon, Dozle will bathe their fleets in nuclear fire. What we must focus on is getting directly to the bunker and securing order in Zum City if the rest of the colony has been hit, or Side 3 if they dare to strike against the entirety of our nation." Gihren said, with Degwin nodding in agreement.

"Before we do so, we must organize an evacuation of the Capitol district and secure the members of Parliament and cabinet ministers. Our family is not the totality of the government and I will not allow the Federation to decapitate the legislature." Degwin said. Internally Gihren scoffed at the notion, Parliament and the party were beneath the Zabi family and they existed nothing more as tools of the dynasty. The survival of the Zabis was paramount above all others, not elected politicians who were entirely replaceable.

It seemed that Kycillia had also agreed with him as she begged father to hurry to the bunker since as Sovereign his life was important to all others. Degwin refused, with Garma siding with their father, and after a minute of bickering a small compromise was agreed where the Zabis would wait until a fair amount of the Capitol Police regained consciousness to handle the evacuation. When such a time occurred, the Zabis would evacuate with the Royal Guard.

It took a further twenty minutes, though eventually there was enough of the Police who had resumed duties for there to be an organized evacuation, allowing the Zabis to swiftly evacuate to the Royal bunker which lied underneath the Palace. Using an underground maintenance tunnels which had been closed off to the public and converted to allow for an emergency exit of the Royal family, the four Zabis were able to reach the royal bunker with swift time. When they had arrived, the Zabis entered into the bunker's command center where they would be able to connect to the Defense Forces network and coordinate a defense of Side 3.

What Gihren and the rest of his family discovered was a situation that they could never have imagined. Domestically the situation looked to take a turn for the worst. Not only was the Capitol attacked, not only was Zum City attacked, but every single colony within Side 3 seemed to be a victim of the attack. Scattered news reports showed the few reporters who had regained consciousness depicting scenes of cities that looked straight to be from an ancient horror film. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands in the cases of public rallies for the Declaration lied motionless in the streets. Those who had awaken were trying desperately to tend to their friends and loved ones.

While the physical infrastructure appeared to be intact, there were a few signs of major vehicular accidents taking place, most likely due to people falling asleep at the wheel. Some broadcasts even showed footage of crimes of vandalism and looting being committed in the absence of law enforcement. Communication networks with colonial police departments and the garrisons featured several men and women trying desperately to mobilize their few available troops to restore order.

As bad as the situation within Side 3 was, it was nothing compared to the impossibility that was being presented to the Zabis. From what their long-range satellites were reporting, not only was Zeon in the midst of collapse, but it appeared that the entirety of the Earth sphere had transformed within the past hour. Sides 1 and 4 had been replaced with bizarre constructs that appeared to be giant hourglasses that acted as colonies. The near side lunar cities along with Loum had been greatly reduced in number. Sides 2 and 6 had been reduced to seven colonies along with one derelict one. The only places in space that appeared to be physically unchanged was Zeon itself, the far side lunar cities, Side 7, along with Solomon and Pezun.

Getting into contact with Dozle and him confirming that both Zenna and him came out relatively unscathed was by far the only good news that the Zabi family had received in the last hour. However, Gihren noticed during their brief conversation that Dozle appeared to be greatly disturbed. Not directed towards him like Kycillia, but more of a haunted look, yet he refused to inform his family of what had occurred in the base beyond falling into unconsciousness and observing a few of his men act hysterically.

When they had broken off communication with Dozle so that he could take stock of what was occurring in Solomon and the 2nd Fleet, a deathly silence settled over the Zabis. Garma would be the first to break the ice.

"Our scanners...they have to be wrong, surely? The entire Earth sphere can't have just changed itself overnight, surely this is an element of the Federation's attack, to not only launch a bio weapon at our people but to hack our satellites and leave us completely blind." Advocated Garma.

Kycillia shook her head in disagreement, "I think it's about time that we stopped blaming the Federation for this. There is only so much that Earth can do with finite resources. Launching a bio attack to strike two billion Spacenoids, the capabilities to launch those attacks instantaneously within hundreds of colonies, taking control of tens of thousands of satellites to present false information, all of this is humanly impossible. It would take years, if not decades of planning to launch an attack of this scope and preparation. For all that we blame the Federation, why have they not taken action yet? It is the perfect moment to destroy the Principality, yet the only signs of the Federation presence in space are the far side fleets, all of which have been laying idly at Luna. I may not be able to explain this, but I have no doubts that the Earth Federation cannot possibly be behind the events that have just taken place."

"Still, even if there was no bio attack, even if our satellite readings are correct, what exactly does this mean? Hundreds of satellites cannot go missing and be replaced with entirely foreign constructs. From the looks of it, it looks as though most of the Lagrange points have been replaced." Garma said.

"Or perhaps we have been transported to another world." Degwin softly said to himself. His children looked to him in equal bewilderment, prompting him to continue in elaboration.

"When I was young, your grandfather gave me a collection of Japanese literature from his youth, mostly manga and light novels that he had procured during his years in Japan. A good portion of these stories were of the "Isekai" genre. Isekai is Japanese for different or another world. As the name says, these stories typically featured a bland young adult male who was whisked away to a fantasy world where they would partake in tales of wish fulfillment meant to bring about a sense of escapism in the reader. Most of these stories were pretty bland and had poor writing, though I held an obsession with them in my teenager years, especially with how harsh life was in the colonies back then.

Within all of these stories, there existed a common trope for how they would start out with. The protagonist along with their friends occasionally would be partaking in a mundane everyday activity. Then they stumbled upon an otherwordly element that when they made contact with, they would be whisked away with a bright light to an exotic land with little semblance to their homes of Japan. Thus their adventures and the story begins.

Think back to how this all started. Gihren had just finished reading the Declaration, he presented it to me, and I made the signing. Literally moments after, this bright white light infects our vision, we fall into unconsciousness. When we wake up, we not only find the entire nation to be inflicted, but for the Earth sphere to be transformed into an unrecognizable state." Degwin said, finishing his explanation.

His three children looked at him with bewilderment, "Father. Are you saying that Zeon has...been transported to another world?" Kycillia said, disbelief tracing every word that came out of her mouth.

Degwin shrugged his shoulders in response, "I know what it sounds like, and what I've said is most likely nothing more than the ramblings of an old man brought about by memories. Yet at the same time, can any of you come up with a logical explanation for this fantastical event that had just taken place? Can you truly explain with zero doubt what has just been inflicted upon Zeon or why the Earth sphere outside of Side 3 looks to be a completely alien world." Degwin asked, being met with awkward silence in response.

Seeing that trying to make sense of what had happened would lead them nowhere, Gihren attempted to take charge of the situation."Whatever has happened throughout the Earth sphere it is none of our concern. What we must focus on is restoring order within Side 3, provide aid to disaster areas, and ward off potential attack from the Far Side fleets. Once Zeon is secure, then we can solve the question of what's wrong with the Earth sphere." Gihren said, with Degwin, Garma, even Kycillia nodding in agreement.

"Father, I implore you to invoke the right to declare martial law as Sovereign. Every civilian government within the colonies is most likely incapacitated. We must mobilize the Army to restore order while tasking the Space Force to defend our borders." Kycillia advocated, Degwin nodding in return.

"It shall be done. I shall send word for total mobilization and to place a travel embargo on all civilian shipping. If any civilian or Federation vessel crosses into L2, they shall be detained until the situation is over or dealt with as hostiles. Zeon has been independent for an hour. Let us make sure it continues to stay independent for several generations instead of days."

**April 1st, 70 CE. ZSFS Ares. Wilhelm Lutjens POV**

When Admiral Wilhelm Lutjens had started his day, it had been a simple one. All he had to do was to simply ensure that in the aftermath of the Principality's Declaration of Independence, that the Federation Fleet located at Side 2 would not launch an attack at the Homeland, as well at to watch for any suspicious movements of the Federal fleet towards the moon and Side 3.

So far the job had been performed easily enough. There was no indication on long range scanners of the Federal Fleets moving from their docks in Hatte, and the mood within Side 6, the Republic of Riah, was generally favorable to the Declaration with multiple outbreaks of pro-Zeon demonstrations within the colony. Just like Zeon in the aftermath of the Dawn Rebellion led by Garma Zabi, Riah had become the second Spacenoid nation to break further away from Federal control by declaring domestic sovereignty over their Side in the Riah Revolution, or the April Uprising as it was known throughout the rest of the Federation. An achievement created two years ago through covert Zeon support. Wilhelm had taken this as a good sign that if war were to break out within the next few months, that Riah would join Zeon as an ally and declare total independence as well.

When Gihren Zabi had read the Declaration, Wilhelm's heart beat strong and proud like any true Spacenoid. After decades of oppression, after the assassination of Zeon Zum Deikun, the sanctions and embargoes that the Federation had placed under Zeon for the past two years, they would finally be independent and free, no longer having to answer the call to Earth.

When Degwin Zabi signed the Declaration, the entirety of the _Ares_, the _Gwazine-class_ ship that was Wilhelm's command and flagship of the Third Fleet, had broken out into immense celebration with Wilhelm even being able to hear the cheers and jubilation from the bridge.

However, just as Zeon was undergoing its greatest and most triumphant moment in its history, it seemed that Wilhelm's world was coming to an end. An impossible white light engulfed Wilhelm's vision and covered the bridge with the intensity of the sun. Wilhelm heard a couple of his men cry out in immense pain and agony, while he felt a great wave of exhaustion overtake him. Wilhelm had feared the worst, that somehow the Federation had sneaked biological weapons to his ship and the rest of the fleet as punishment for daring to break away from the oppression of gravity. He tried desperately to stay conscious, only to fall into darkness.

When Wilhelm had come to, it appeared that a mere twenty minutes had passed since he had lost consciousnesses. What Wilhelm had awaken to was chaos the likes of which he had never been prepared for. Across the fleet, tens of thousands of personnel had apparently been inflicted with some sort of case of mass hysteria, many screeching about deaths or great tragedies which did not happen yet. Wilhelm had experienced this himself when his CIC officer woke up crying and howling like a banshee, the young man muttering constantly about some strange thing called a _Gundam_.

While having a good fraction of his fleet falling victim to some sort of chemical attack was horrible news on any given day, the worse part was how in the initial reports that were still flooding in, a disproportionate amount of those inflicted were pilots. On the Ares, twelve of the Zaku pilots reportedly had fits of hysteria and "visions" of some sort of future. While the Third Fleet in its crippled state could still reasonably come out on top against a Federal attack, the loss of so many key personnel and pilots would cause casualties to unnecessarily mount up.

Well, that would be _if there would be_ a Federal attack.

Once Wilhelm had taken stock of the Ares and a good portion of the fleet, his comms officer alerted him of something greatly disturbing, the fact that the colonies of both Sides 2 and 6 _ceased to exist_. In their place was a mere seven open-type O'Neil cylinders that were the entirety of a human presence within L4, a complete reversal from the hundreds of colonies that used to occupy this Lagrange point. Outside of a fleet of around three hundred ships guarding the colonies, _none of which_ followed traditional Federation class design, the Lagrange point was completely barren.

Long range scans showed that this bizarre phenomena was not only within L4, but throughout the entire Earth sphere. In L5 where there should have been Sides 1 and 4, there were instead 120 colonies that followed some sort of bizarre hourglass design. How the hell such constructs could operate was completely unknown to the Admiral and his bridge staff. Side 5 was drastically reduced from several hundred colonies to a couple dozen. The lunar cities on the near side were reduced from 17 to 11. Pezun's satellites also showed that traffic within the Earth sphere was considerably lighter than usual, almost as if a large majority of intrasphere traffic vanished.

The only good news that existed, and part of how Wilhelm kept his sanity as endless questions were being created every minute, was that contact was made with both the Homeland and Solomon. While Side 3 had been afflicted with the same sort of biological attack, the royal family had made it through relatively unscathed and were working quickly to restore order. Wilhelm was also able to contact Lord Dozle, and while the two were not able to converse long, Wilhelm was able to confirm that Dozle Zabi shared the same confusion that was plaguing him, with Degwin's second son trying desperately to investigate just what the hell were the cylinders that had replaced the Federation's bastion in space.

With the whole world having been turned upside down and colonies vanishing and materializing by the thousands, Wilhelm decided to get to the bottom of this bizarre mystery and reach out in contact to the unknown fleet and colonies that cohabited L4 with the Pezun Fleet. Fortunately for now the fleet had not made any moves to attack Pezun, and if Wilhelm was to prepare his fleet to recover from the bio attack, then he needed to stall time and engage in diplomacy with the unknowns. Hopefully he would find out just who the hell had replaced both Hatte and Riah and if they were lapdogs of the Federation.

After Wilhelm had sent his message, it had gone unanswered for forty minutes. Wilhelm had feared that the unknowns had completely ignored him and had given up on contact, until his comms officer alerted him while he was in the middle of reading a directive from Zum City.

"Admiral, the unknown fleet is hailing us. The source of the transmission appears to come from a 'hammerhead' in the center of the unknown fleet." Said his comms officer, Lieutenant Janette Hu.

Putting down his data pad at his side, Wilhelm looked towards the comm station, "Have we established a visual connection?" He asked.

Janette shook her head, "No sir, it's radio only. Without knowing the telecommunication frequencies used by the unknowns I won't be able to establish one." She apologized.

Wilhelm waved her concern off, "It's alright. Just wanted to see the face of whoever the hell this is. Patch the conversation to the bridge's speakers. All of you deserve an answer just as much as I do." Wilhelm ordered, picking up his chair's phone to personally engage in conversation with the leader of the unknowns, Janette complying with his order in the meantime.

"Unknown fleet, this is Admiral Wilhelm Lutjens, Commanding Officer of the Zeon Space Force Third Fleet and Commander of the Space Fortess Pezun. Are you able to read us?" Wilhelm asked, desperately hoping that this would be a peaceful exchange without shots fired right after.

A small silence followed Lutjens, with the entire bridge of the Ares engulfed in an air of high unease and tension. Fortunately, they soon got a response.

"To the officer named Admiral Lutjens, this is Admiral Chen Baoyi PLASF 9th Fleet. We here you loud and clear on our end." Said a monotone voice on the other side. While a momentary relief filled the bridge of the Ares, confusion soon entered its occupants when they had heard the term _PLASF_, completely foreign to the crew with no knowledge of any Federation groups with the same name.

_'PLASF? What could that possibly mean? Some special warfare branch that the Feds cooked up?'_ Wilhelm wondered.

"Greetings Admiral Chen. Could you please state your identification and who you are affiliated. What exactly is this PLASF?" Wilhelm said.

Wilhelm could hear what sounded like an insulted scoff on the other end, as if Wilhelm was somehow in the wrong.

"I should be asking you that question, _Admiral Lutjens_. You and your fleet are infringing on East Asian sovereign space. Since our nation would never employ a German as a flag officer, then you are not part of the People's Liberation Army. Are you some sort of stealth fleet with the Atlantic Federation? Eurasia? Or is this some kind of ZAFT trick?"

Before Wilhelm thought it would be impossible to get any more confused on the current state of affairs. Now he felt like a migraine forming from the sheer nonsense that this man was spouting. His bridge crew appeared to be sharing the same feeling. He could hear his conn officer say audibly, "What the fuck is a ZAFT?"

Tightening his grip on the telephone, Wilhelm hoped desperately that some sense would come to light within the next couple of minutes. "Pardon me Admiral, but what do you mean East Asian space? The only two nations that exist within Lagrange 4 are Sides 2 and 6, Hatte and Riah. East Asians may make up a substantial demographic of Spacenoids, they are not the majority in any of the Sides. This Atlantic Federation, Eurasia, and ZAFT, do not exist, either in space or on Earth. And the People's Liberation Army was nuked to oblivion in the Third World War along with Communist China. Tell me Admiral, why is there only seven colonies within this entire Lagrange point and who do you work for? If this is a Feddie trap, my men will not fall for some amateur deception!"

The response that Wilhelm got was one that was extremely aggressive, telling him that he must have pissed off this "Chen" incredibly, "The People's Republic of China and the Liberation Army was not _nuked to oblivion_ in the Reconstruction War, we achieved victory with the reunification of China and the integration of Japan and Korea, reforming into East Asia. How dare you insult our history with revisionist nonsense! East Asia has always held sovereign control of Lagrange 4, this Hatte and Riah are nothing but foreign terms that do not exist. Why would there be hundreds of colonies when there has always been seven? Just who do you serve?!"

Now Wilhelm was starting to get angry. Instead of giving clear answers, this man was spouting fiction and trying to gaslight him into believing some sort of psuedo-history. "Like I have said before, I am an officer of Principality of Zeon. Two hours ago Lord Degwin declared independence from the Federation, so we are no longer bound to gravity's tyranny as the other Sides. I do not know what kind of trick you are playing at Earthnoid, but if the Federation dares to fire on Pezun and violate our sovereignty, we will retaliate and see the total destruction of your fleet, these new classes will make no difference on the battlefield."

"The Federation? We are not the Atlantic Federation, we are soldiers of the Republic of East Asia. So you are an Atlantic fleet that has gone rogue and declared this Zeon nation? While I do not wish to fight a nation outside of ZAFT, we will not tolerate traitors within the Earth Alliance." Chen said.

At this point Wilhelm was completely flabbergasted, desperately wishing for this sick comedy show to come to an end.

"What do you mean the Atlantic Federation? No such state exists on Earth, the only one I am referring to is the Earth Federation, not some sort of Alliance. Pezun and the fleet alone are not Zeon, Zeon is Side 3. The guiding light of the Spacenoids who shall liberate the Earth sphere from Federal rule. If you do not come with a clear answer in the next minute, then I shall end this farce of communications and consider you and your fleet a hostile force. Your ships will be stardust before you try to get within fifty thousand kilometers of Lagrange 2."

Instead of replying back with more nonsense, Wilhelm was met with dead silence on the other end. He had thought that the call was over and was about to signal for an end to the conversation when Chen spoke again.

"Lagrange 2? The hundreds of colonies that appeared, they belong to this Zeon?" Chen asked.

"Of course they-"Wilhelm's response was cut off when the precise meaning of what Chen had asked hit him. He asked about the hundreds of colonies that _appeared_, just as these seven colonies and unknown fleet of no known design appeared out of nowhere to the 3rd fleet. Within the Admiral's mind, gears started turning as all the information that he had just received was starting to come together. L4, the hourglasses within L5, the decrease in lunar cities, shrunken traffic, existence of completely unknown nations, an alternate history.

Having read a few science fiction novels of a similar scenario, Wilhelm was starting to formulate a hypothesis that he thought was impossible. "Admiral Chen, I am going to say a series of words. Once I am finished, I want you to say if they have any meaning to you."

"What kind of game is this?" An exasperated and tired Chen asked.

"Please, for the sake of both of our fleets, comply with my request Admiral." The "East Asian" Admiral gave his assent.

Wilhelm then said a series of words that should have been common knowledge to any true Spacenoid, "Universal Century. Zeon Zum Deikun. Contolism. Newtypes. The Zabi dynasty. Minovsky Physics. Earth Federation. The Laplace Bombing. The Unification Wars. Jupiter Energy Fleet."

"None of those words make any sense to me." Chen confirmed, filling Wilhelm with a great amount of dread.

"Admiral. I have one last question. What is today's date?" Wilhelm asked, holding his breath.

"What?"

"What is today's date? Not just the month and day, but the year."

"April 1st, Year 70 of the Cosmic Era." Chen said. The bridge of the Ares became so silent, that one could hear a pin drop.

"Today's date is October 1st, Universal Century 0078. To borrow an old quote Admiral, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."  
**  
March 31st, 70 CE. 11:59 P.M Colonial Standard. SS Raifuku Maru. Third Person POV.**

With a permanent population of seven and a half million people, their core territories on Earth being a small collection of islands in the Pacific, and sole ownership of a single space colony and station within the Earth sphere, the nation of Orb was not one that the average denizen of the Cosmic Era would consider to be a power in space, especially when greater superstates such as the African Community, South America, and Equatorial Union were all denied a spot in the Earth sphere. While Orb was no threat through their physical possessions alone, they were a power through the financial capitol of a few select corporations that were the lucky innovators by being some of the first corporate empires in space.

One of these was Fuzan Shipping, an interstellar shipping company owned by its titular head, Shigeru Fuzan, head of the House of Fuzan, one of the Five Great Families of Orb. Shigeru's father, Hayato Fuzan, was one of the first to recognize the vast economic potential that located in the stars, and as such he created Fuzan Shipping to act as the facilitator of trade between Earth, Luna, and the colonies. After all, what was the point of space colonization if you couldn't get the resources of space to Earth and vice versa? Modeling itself in a manner similar to the shipping pioneers of Fedex and UPS, Fuzan Shipping would come to dominate intersphere trade, owning 25% of all space trade throughout the solar system.

One area that Fuzan Shipping dominated was trade between Earth and Mars, the long trek between the two planets and the lack of hard investment from the superstates on the fourth rock allowing Fuzan to own a near monopoly on trade between the two spheres. If the nations of Mars needed resources that could not be produced in the planet, they would receive it from Fuzan.

One ship that took part in this great exchange was the _SS Raifuku Maru_. She was a large, blocky, rectangular freighter at 1.5 kilometers, built to endure the great ten week journey from the Earth to Mars, ensuring that billions of dollars of goods made the safe journey between worlds. The last year was an extremely profitable one for the _Raifuku Maru_, mostly owing to the high demand of Martian rare metals by the PLANTs, the orders of which generated a fortune for the ship with large bonuses to its crew.

At the moment the ship was about to enter L2, signalling its return approach to the Earth sphere after ten weeks of travel from Mars. The ship's crew had been able to make the long journey through the usage of cryotechnology, keeping them unconscious for two months while the first and last week of the journey had the crew active in order to make for a clean and safe return.

On the bridge of the ship, Captain Kazuma Hara sat within the center on the captain's chair, relaxing blissfully as he gazed out on the ship's monitor to the distant but approaching moon. This most recent trip had been a great success with the ship having a profit that was millions of Yen higher than the expected goal. Within a couple of days after docking at Heliopolis, he would return to his family at Yalafath and spend some well deserved vacation time that he had been saving up. If all went well for the next year, then the aging Captain would be able to retire and spend the rest of his days growing old and content with his wife on the shores of the Pacific. It was a great time to be alive to Captain Hara, this current war between the Alliance and PLANTs be damned.

As the clock struck midnight in colonial and Greenwich mean time, Captain Hara witnessed his own two eyes an extraordinary event that few humans from the Cosmic Era would've had the pleasure of seeing outside of a recording. One moment, the space before him was vast and empty with nothing laying between the _Raifuku Maru_ and the moon. The next a bright light engulfed the entirety of the Lagrange point, almost as if the sun had transported itself to the far side of the moon. After several seconds of intensity, with the Captain and the three other members of the bridge crew present shielding their eyes, the light receded itself. While the Lagrange had seemed to visibly still be the same, in the distance Hara could see what appeared to be blips.

"Captain, what was that?!" Asked a highly worried connsman.

"I have no idea. No such natural phenomena exists, so I would have to guess that the Alliance or PLANTs was testing some sort of weapon." Hara hypothesized, inflicting a small amount of horror onto the bridge. To a large majority of Orb, having grown up in a state of pacifism where their nation's motto was solely about how they would not get involved in war, the idea of any armed conflict in the modern period made them sick to their stomach. It was already bad enough that the Big Three had extended their arms race to the once neutral and peaceful outer space, but they had exported their bigotry to the genetically enhanced to the Earth sphere, causing the PLANTs to revolt to obtain their freedom.

When the crew of the _Raifuku Maru_ had learned about the outbreak of what was being called the Bloody Valentine War, it had filled them with a great amount of disgust towards the Alliance for choosing to launch a nuclear strike on a civilian colony, with the ship's Coordinator crew loudly cursing the Atlantic Federation for their hatred. To Captain Hara, the outbreak of the war would be a tragedy even if such a horrific warcrime was not committed. No matter which way the war ended, the possibility of long term co-existence between Naturals and Coordinators reached near non-existence.

"Whatever has happened, I will not have this ship take any part in it. Mr. Ogawa, turn this ship's vector to L4 and have us make for Heliopolis at once. While I would've liked to have the ship stop at Copernicus, we will not be caught up in whatever escalation is taking place." Hara ordered, though visibly grimacing on the prospect of entering through East Asian space.

While Uzumi Nara Attha liked to present Orb as a progressive nation which welcomed everyone and anyone with open arms, almost all citizens of Orb held a high amount of hatred and distaste towards East Asia. It was thanks to the imperialism of East Asia that the first generation of Orb was exiled from their homeland after its brutal conquest, only surviving thanks to the great wealth and ingenuity of the Five Great families. Hara himself had been a baby when he and his family left their ancestral homes on Okinawa to Chinese rule. He was well aware of many cousins and distant relatives who still suffered under the oppression of East Asian rule, only a lucky few were able to survive and escape to join his family in Orb.

For the next hour the Raifuku Maru continued its way to Heliopolis after Hara had alerted the crew of the "military test". While there was some minor apprehension, the crew who were awake at the current time went on with their schedules, feeling safe that neither side would dare attack on Orb and violate their neutrality.

Around one o'clock, Hara was about to end his shift and go to sleep, when he was asked by his communications officer, a young female Coordinator by the name of Amane Miyata to come to her station as he was heading out.

"Have you heard a distress signal Miyata-san?" Asked Hara.

She shook her head as he approached, with Hara being surprised on finding a great deal of fear and apprehension on her facial features. "No Captain. However, I've been scanning long-range communications within the Lagrange point and have conducted scans of the region as I was curious to what that light was. What I've found...well I'm not really sure what I've found to be honest."

A frown formed on Hara's face, "Why was I just now alerted of this?" He asked.

"Because sir, what I'm seeing and hearing should not exist within L2. Not only have I been picking up a major spike in communications which goes far beyond the current levels within Ls 1,4,5 and the moon, but I've detected not only an impossibly high amount of spaceships within the Lagrange, but several hundred colonies that did not previously exist hours ago." Miyata said.

Hara looked at her incredulously, "_Hundreds_ of colonies? That's impossible, not even Earth has the resources to..."Captain Hara became dead silent when Miyata typed on her console and pulled up several images of what appeared to be closed type O'Neil cylinders, colonies which were never implemented by the nations of Earth. Around each colony were dozens to hundreds of ships of varying sizes. What was most worrying to Hara was one image that showed a large asteroid shaped like an cone which was surrounded by hundreds of ships of some foreign military design.

"Are you sure that these images are really of what's present within Lagrange 2?"

"Do you believe I am lying to you Captain?" Miyata asked, insulted at the connotation.

Hara shook his head, "No, it's just physically impossible. We swung by L2 two months ago and none of this was here. The Alliance could not have built these colonies, it would have taken their entire fiscal budgets. Why would they even-"Hara was interrupted when a beeping noise came from Miyata's station, signalling a direct communication to the _Raifuku Maru_.

"Audio only sir. It appears to be coming from four hundred kliks galactic west within the Lagrange point."

"Play it." Hara ordered. Miyata did as ordered, and within five seconds a gruff masculine voice filled the speakers of the bridge.

"Unidentified ship, this is Commander Edgar Cruz of the _ZSFS Brunswick_. Please state your name, identification, port of origin and destination." The bridge crew frowned at the statement, the ship hailing them acted like a military vessel, but to their knowledge none of the nations within the Earth sphere used ZSFS as a moniker. The closest that came to mind was ZAFT but they named all their vessels starting with ZAFT itself, unless they changed it in the time that the Raifuku Maru was gone. Yet why would the PLANTs be in L2?

Under Hara's orders, Miyata initiated contact with the ship. "Brunswick, this is Captain Kazuma Hara of the_ SS Raifuku Maru_, an Orb intersphere freighter under the ownership of the Fuzan Shipping Corporation. We are on a return trip from the Martian sphere and seek to head to Heliopolis in L3." Hara responded.

"_Raifuku Maru_, we have no records of a corporation called "Fuzan Shipping" and no such colony named Heliopolis exists in Side 7. Please state your true identification within the next minute or else you shall be interred as suspects of the biological attack on the Principality."

Hara's jaw dropped open at the barrenness of this Commander Cruz's statement. Not only did they claim that Fuzan Shipping did not exist, but they also stated that Heliopolis did not exist, when it was highly famous within the Earth sphere as the only colony of Orb.

_'What's this Side 7. What Principality?'_ Hara wondered in bewilderment.

"Captain, this is the vessel that is hailing us." Miyata said, putting a video feed on the main screen of the bridge. Hara found himself staring at a large green warship that did not follow the designs of ZAFT or the Earth Alliance. It was a long vessel with its primary featured being three gun turrets on a narrow and thin mid-section leading from the main body to a bridge. While the bridge itself was also connected to two engines on the port and starboard sections of the ship. It was a strange design to the eyes of Hara, though oddly enough it reminded him of images of the Imperial Japanese Navy that his ancestors served in.

"Commander Cruz, I'm afraid I do not understand your statement. What is this Side 7 that you speak of, it is no area that Heliopolis identifies with. Once more, what is this biological attack that you speak of and what Principality? Orb is a nation of noble Emirates while Scandinavia is a Kingdom."

"If your attempt of escape is to play so dumb that you are unaware of reality then I can ensure you Captain that you have failed utterly. Since you refuse to speak in any form of sense, I demand that the _Raifuku Maru_ allow the _Brunswick_ to escort it to the Kudelia colony for interment. Any hostility or refusal to cooperate will result in the Brunswick opening fire. For the safety of your crew, cooperation is essential. Cruz out." The Commander said, cutting off the transmission before Hara could defend himself or try to reason with the unknown ship.

Miyata and the two connsmen looked Hara for guidance, desperate for some way out. Unfortunately barring divine intervention, there were none. The only military capabilities the ship had was a collection of small arms to deal with hostile boarders, criminals, or stowaways. They had no external defensive capabilities, allowing the _Brunswick's_ six canons to easily eliminate them without the fear of retaliation. For now, Hara and his crew were destined to become prisoners of this unknown group.

"Miyata-san, send a transmission to Heliopolis and Ame-no-Mihashira with the sensory data that we have on L2 and the communications log with the Brunswick. Also send a general SOS to Luna and L1. For now we can only play nice and comply with the _Brunswick's_ demands barring any extremes. All we can do now is have faith that Chief Executive Uzumi will be able to negotiate our release." If there was one man they could trust to bring peace and prevent conflict with this unknown group of hostiles, it would be Uzumi Nara Attha.

**A/N: Firstly in this part of the chapter we have Dozle having a conversation with future Mineva as well as the revelations of him being a Newtype. Just to clarify first, Mineva was not physically within Solomon and there will not be an ISOT with Gundam Unicorn. At least for this story alone, Zeon will be the only physical nation or group transplanted from UC to CE. Also, Dozle's future conversations with Mineva will not affect the plot of Unicorn so exclusive focus will be on the fused CE timeline. What has happened is CC Dozle talking to canon Mineva. I know I wrote in the first chapter that Dozle would not get an explanation until the day he died, but I will remove that line surely and just so you know him learning of Mineva will not automatically lead to his death. This change will not change anything drastically of the plot I have established, rather it is meant to expand upon Dozle's character arc through the story and the person he becomes in the end.**

**Next we have Gihren's POV, which was a fun experience to write the inner thoughts of Space Hitler instead of his self-insert. Gihren's journey within the story and his role in events to come is going to be interesting as he has not gone off the deep end yet, especially since he hasn't committed genocide and Degwin is still standing strong to stop his worst extremes. My portrayal of Gihren here is someone who is a monster in the making, yet still has some shreds of humanity deep inside of him that are slowly disappearing. Whether Gihren will adjust to this new world and become a new man or continue his descent towards Hitlerism shall be an important plot point as we move forward. For those who are confused on why Gihren rejected himself as a Hitler follower in his vision, I wrote it as something I saw of being in-character as Gihren would not see himself as being a follower of anyone, rather being beyond all those who came before him. Sure he admires Hitler, but at the end of the day Gihren still sees Hitler as inferior because he failed, a great irony with Gihren's megalomania making him blind towards making the same choices and mistakes.**

**Also to make a small spoiler to address a question that I'm sure many people will ask, yes, Degwin and his children are all Newtypes. They are Oldtypes in canon and were in the beginning, however their journey to the Cosmic Era has made them become awakened along with tens of millions of other Oldtypes in Zeon, which will present some interesting paths for the Zabi dynasty. Just to be clear, former Oldtypes who were awakened are on average greatly weaker than Newtypes by birth and as such we wont see the Zabis become perfect psychics. The family's Newtype potential is average or below average, except for Dozle who can stand equally with many heavyhitters due to reasons that will be explored later.**

**Just as we have seen in the last chapter, the Zabis are not the first or last Oldtypes on either side who have been awakened. We'll see plenty of more characters from both universes become Newtypes as the story moves forward in the future. As for existing Newtypes, let's just say they're about to reach past their limits and explore new potential.**

**Admiral Wilhelm Lutjens is an OC of mine who is partially based on Admiral Gunther Lutjens who was the commander of the legendary Battleship Bismarck. Right now contact has been initiated with Zeon and East Asia, though whether or not this contact shall stay peaceful remains to be seen.**

**Lastly in the chapter we have the seizure of the Raifuku Maru by the Brunswick, which will be the starting point for Orb's proper insertion into the plot. Throughout Cosmic Crusade, one of my main objectives will be to deconstruct and flesh out Orb to present it as a realistic state that could come into existence instead of the perfect superpower of canon. Orb unfortunately suffers from a case of both poor worldbuilding and lack of worldbuilding, the latter especially being true in its politics with the Orb political system never once being explained beyond vague feudalism, and 2 out of the 5 Great Houses not existing in any SEED materials. Here I intend to rectify that, which I have already started with the introduction of House Fuzan, with its head Shigeru Fuzan being sort of CE's equivalent Woomin Luio. The fifth house that I have created, House Keitamura, will appear later in a chapter with Uzumi addressing his fellow House Heads.**

**To address a question on the ships that Talia and Rau were on, Talia's ship the ZAFT Georges Danton is a Laurasia as was Rau's ship, the Jin Yuelin. Rau was stationed on the Jin Yuelin solely for Uroboros while had canon proceeded, he would've been stationed on the Galvani at Endiyomon. Also just to let readers know, I am going to make a canon divergence and have both Eurasia and East Asia have their own ships and mobile armor at the start of the war. To me it's completely BS that Eurasia and East would use the exact same weaponry and vehicles as the Atlantic Federation when they were in a Cold War a few years prior. This is only possible if they were heavily running off of a Lend-Lease pact, which would not be possibly outside of light amounts due to the Atlantic Federation suffering the energy crisis and having to supply their own forces.**

**Just to let people know about the two nations, Eurasia's ships follow the Martian Congressional Republic Navy from the Expanse while East Asia follows the UN Navy from the same show, though the tech is different and have more standardized scales between 200-500 meters. Eurasia has the Scirocco-class as their carriers, the Donnager-class as their Battleships, and a Corvette class as their cruisers but five times larger. East Asia has the Truman-class as their carriers, the Leonidas-class as their battleships, and the Monroe-class as their cruisers. Eurasia also uses the Walkure from LOTGH as their initial mobile armor while East Asia has the Spartanian from LOTGH as theirs, though both fighters are at a 1/4th of their size from the show.**

**Next chapter shall be the leadup to Operation Uroboros with Chapters 6-7 covering Uroboros itself. Uroboros could technically be considered a station of canon, there will be some very subtle differences here thanks to the April Fools Miracle and the direct aftermath of Uroboros will lead to two events which shall throw canon off the rails and turn CE to new territory. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	5. Highway to Hell

**April 1st, 70 CE. 2:00 A.M Colonial Standard. **_**AFS Woodrow Wilson**_**. Admiral Eugene Booth POV.**

When Admiral Eugene Booth had been given command of the recently created Earth Orbital Taskforce with the objective of eliminating the approaching ZAFT fleet, one that seemed to consist of over half of all known ZAFT warships, he had been ecstatic. In a single battle he would be able to exterminate tens of thousands of those disgusting Patchworkers and turn the tide of the war into a total victory for the Atlantic Federation and the Alliance. Through his hands, a Blue and Pure world would be created.

While the Coordinators may have had the upper hand so far, it was only due to the superiority of their abominable genes as well as the idiotic political deadlock that Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and Pretoria continued to engage in after the righteous fires of Junius Seven. Admittedly, the quality of the GINN may have also played a role as each passing day was proving Halberton's doctrine of Mobile Suits to be far superior to the current Mobile Armors.

Even still, there would be absolutely no way for the Coordinators to win the upcoming battle thanks to the overwhelming 7 to 1 numerical advantage that the OMNI coalition had over ZAFT's fleet. Not only had they come out in full force, Booth had been given control of thousands of nukes to use at his discretion. A Natural victory was a foregone conclusion!

At least, until whatever the hell happened two hours ago. Upon the beginning of April 1st at Greenwich time, tens of thousands of servicemen across the various fleets had gone into some sort of shocks and seizures. Everyone who was afflicted was screaming like a maniac, many from the reports screeching of dying or impossible events that never happened. Booth had witnessed a number of men and women directly under him who went into shock, the most distinctive being an Ensign who assaulted him while proclaiming that ZAFT was going to massacre them all if he didn't order the fleet back to Luna.

Absolute madness!

As if the breakdown of the fleet wasn't enough, they had also received reports from Earth on military networks and civilian news channels that whatever happened here also was going down on the planet, tens of millions of individuals screeching and falling into unconsciousness, causing a general collapse of order in many areas. _And if that wasn't enough_, Booth had just received reports of Luna of new groupings in space. Two military asteroids along with a grand fleet stationed in Ls 4 and 5, along with hundreds of colonies suddenly appearing in L2.

'Those goddamn Coordinators!' Cursed Booth.

All signs had to point to them. The fleet was crippled just as they were about to meet this Earth invasion force. Not only had every member of the Alliance been afflicted with a terrible disease that seemed to be of an even greater efficiency than the Coordinator-concocted S2 Flu, but the neutral nations had been inflicted as well. An unknown fleet not only appears to protect the PLANTs, but one appears right ontop of the East Asian ghettos with the Lunar Cities facing a gun towards them with these mysterious colonies that the Coordinators created.

As disastrous as the situation was, it only strengthened Booth's resolve to wipe out the patchworkers and free mankind from these wicked Ubermensch, a mission that needed to succeed soon or else the Naturals would be wiped out by whatever disease the PLANTs had recently unleashed.

It was for this reason that Booth was currently in conference with the leaders of the Orbital Taskforce, the three other highest ranking Admirals of the nations taking part.

"If there is no opposition to the plan proposed then I would suggest that we end this conference and proceed with the reorganization of the fleet." Booth said.

The plan he was referring to was an emergency reorganization of the fleet to deal with the current losses brought about by the Coordinator's biological attack. While there were thankfully no confirmed fatalities, tens of thousands were now unconscious while only a few had managed to wake up. What's worse was that the attack seemed to be disproportionately targeting Mobile Armor pilots, with thousands of pilots across the fleet now incapacitated. While thankfully there were still enough pilots on hand to provide a comparative advantage, it was still enough of a blow to allow ZAFT to drag the battle out longer.

For now the reorganization of the fleet ran as such. Any ship that had a number of casualties greater than 15%, had more than 20% of its mobile armor pilots incapacitated, or had most of its officers and critical personnel incapacitated would be taken out of action. In the end this would raise their total number of ships that would have to withdraw back to Luna at 571. This brought their numbers from previously 6,225 to 5,654. Within the next few hours, they would need to do an emergency evacuation to ship all incapacitated crew members from the active fleet to the retreating fleet. It was a logistical nightmare but something had to be done if they were to prevent a second Victoria.

"I still don't believe that we should wait for reinforcements from the moon. If ZAFT was able to launch a biological attack of this magnitude along with their creation of these new stealth fleets, then we must increase our numbers until the possibility of defeat is below zero." Stated the East Asian Admiral Fang Tao.

"We cannot possibly wait any longer than necessary to consolidate our fleet. By the time we have consolidated our fleet, ZAFT may have well begun their second invasion of Victoria, or possibly Gibraltar. The trajectory of their fleet shows an attack on either Europe or Africa. Given this biological attack, we cannot discount the possibility of Mass Drivers being the only targets." Said the Eurasian Admiral Erich Meisel, most likely worried for the safety of his nation as a likely potential target. Although Booth's own Atlantic Federation would be no safer with the British states at heavy risk.

"I concur with Admiral Meisel, every second that we delay is another second for the stealth fleets to move and provide reinforcements. We will most likely not be able to expect any reinforcements from Luna at the moment with the L2 fleet breathing down their necks." Said the South African Admiral Matee Numbala.

"It is for those precise reasons why we must proceed with the operation. In order to ward off the stealth fleets and protect the moon and L4, all assets must remain in their ports, in other words we are alone. If we do not act quickly then who knows what calamity the Coordinators shall unleash upon the Earth. Nuclear weapons, a kinetic bombardment, maybe some sort of new variation of the Black Plague that their labs have concocted, anything is on the table with the recent attack. We must meet the invaders head on and wipe them out so that Luna shall be free to deal with L2. The future of the Earth and its people are at stake today. If we die we die as heroes. If we wait longer then necessary then we shall be remembered as cowards who let our planet cowards. No, is there any opposition?" Booth said.

Seeing that he was both outnumbered and that they needed to act **now**, Fang begrudgingly gave his assent.

"Good. I want the reorganization to be done no later than 0500. Afterwords we must be at total readiness until we have engaged the enemy. Booth out." Booth said, logging off of the video chat.

Before he could attend to the rest of his fleet, Booth opened up a secret program on his terminal that would open up a channel to all Blue Cosmos affiliated ships within the grand fleet. While most of the Blue Cosmos ships were from his own portion in the Atlantic Fleet (though unfortunately a majority of the Atlantic fleet was commanded by moderates or race traitor progressives), there was a small but sizable number from Eurasia, East Asia, and South Africa. After today there would be no doubt that the ranks of Blue Cosmos throughout the entire Alliance would swell to unseen heights.

After a few minutes of typing, Booth submitted a command file to the Blue Cosmos ships. Within the files were a series of instructions on how to deal with the ZAFT fleet, more specifically for there to be absolutely no quarter given and a highly liberal usage of nuclear strikes outside of the necessary fleet orders. Any ZAFT ships or suits that attempted to surrender would be executed unless Blue Cosmos personnel were surrounded by unaffiliated units that would prevent "warcrimes". Even then Booth was confident that through the influence of Azrael and his contemporaries in the other sponsor nations that they could limit any indictments in military tribunals.

With the orders submitted, Booth exited his office to take command of the fleet on the bridge of the Wilson. Throughout the journey he wore a predatory grin on his face.

_'For the preservation of our blue and pure world.'_  
**  
April 1st, 70 CE. 2:30 A.M Colonial Standard. ZAFT **_**Vincent Ogé**_**. Admiral Rahil Sing POV**

"Sir, why are the Naturals just...sitting there." Asked the Blackcoat sitting next to Rahil in the XO chair, Malcolm Dupree, a Black Coordinator who hailed from the Atlantic Federation before finding refuge in the PLANTs.

"I have absolutely no idea. Most likely their waiting to connect with their new stealth fleets. Even still, one would think that the threat of an attack on Earth would drive them to move forward." Said the Whitecoat and provisional Admiral, Rahil Sing.

The reason why Rahil had been one of the few chosen to have the honor of becoming a Whitecoat, as well as being the choice to lead Operation Uroboros, was due to him being one of the few Coordinators in ZAFT to have military experience before its formation. This was due to Rahil's previous years of service in the Indian Navy. When he left he was a Lieutenant Commander and could've climbed far higher. Unfortunately, the extremely hostile atmosphere within the Equatorial Union after the S2 outbreak made his voluntary exile to the PLANTs with his family the safest option.

In Rahil's opinion, the whole color coded ranking system implemented by the Supreme Council was nothing but pure idiocy by politicians who had no concept of warfare. Most of the councilmen believed that ZAFT only existed as a militia force, that the color ranks would help keep individuality and not install a sense of harsh order that was imposed by the Sponsor nations. Rahil knew better, that even if the war was won by tomorrow that the PLANTs would still need ZAFT as any peace would only be a temporary truce until the next inevitable conflict with Earth. Because of this, ZAFT needed to be reformed into a permanent volunteer force with proper ranks and organization. Patrick Zala seemed to be the only member of the council who shared his vision for the future, which was why Rahil firmly supported his leadership as Defense Chairman.

"But why would they need to connect to their stealth fleets? The Natural's orbital fleet stopped their movement at midnight, which was when the stealth fleets revealed themselves. Shouldn't they have planned beforehand to have the fleets link up with them, or have the stealth fleets attack us when we leaked Uroboros?" Challenged Malcolm.

"Maybe the stealth fleets just can't connect with them and whatever happened at Midnight screwed up their engines, not just their stealth systems." Rahil offered as an explanation.

"That doesn't explain why they would park their fleets in L2 or L4. There's nothing of value there." Malcolm said.

"If there's one thing that I learned during my time in the EU, it's that military alliances are extremely fickle partnerships. The Alliance could've launched another strike after Bloody Valentine, but they choose to sit on their asses because they didn't think ahead enough of what to do after they committed genocide against our people. It may be entirely possible that the stealth fleets were created by a single nation without the knowledge of the others and Lunar Command is freaking out over that instead of focusing on us. It's been sixty years since the Reconstruction War, not even the lowly private who was commissioned before the final battles is still left in service. The Alliance as it stands is led by idiot greenhorns and genocidal Blue Cosmos. They walked into this war thinking they could wipe us out. When we stood defiant, they froze and ran away like the cowardly bastards they are. With this being the case victory is assured in the coming weeks after Uroboros." Rahil promised.

While his answer satisfied Malcom, it still did not bring up the big question that was hanging over the fleet for the past few hours, with each passing minute closing the distance to Earth necessitating a decisive action.

"Sir...are we still proceeding with Uroboros on schedule?" Malcolm asked, prompting a sigh from Rahil.

While Uroboros was going to happen no matter what, as it had to in order to end the war, the exact timing of the operation would be critical to how much of the Alliance's fleets would be wiped out after today.

The original plan called for the fleet to begin the dropping of the N-Jammers as well as the deployment of the Terrestrial Divisions just as the Alliance Orbital Fleet made contact with them. This would allow ZAFT to be given the element of surprise with the N-Jammer, catching the Alliance ships entirely unaware with their nuclear reactors and drives shut down, allowing the battle to become a turkey shoot that would see thousands of Alliance vessels turned into nothing more than debris.

If Uroboros began well before contact was made with the Orbital Fleet, then it would be possible for the Orbital vessels to be made aware of the nature of the N-Jammers and chose not to partake in battle, robbing Sahil and the hundreds of ships under his command of a prime opportunity to wipe out as much as a fifth of the Alliance's presence in space. Or more precisely, a fifth if one would discount the newly revealed stealth fleets.

Rahil sat in contemplation for a minute, trying to run through all possible scenarios to choose the path best suited for victory. Upon deciding how to proceed, he spoke.

"We shall delay our ETA for one hour then proceed to the drop points. No matter what, eliminating the Alliance's energy grid takes greater precedence. While the loss of thousands of ships would be a devastating blow, the Alliance clearly cannot continue with this war if they have no industry to replace losses and cannot feed or house their own civilian populations. I also don't want to keep the Africans waiting, we have to keep Gibraltar in mind." Rahil said with Malcolm nodding.

While the African Community would focus most of its efforts on preserving infrastructure and reconnecting power to their territories inflicted by Uroboros, the African Navy would conduct an amphibious invasion of the Gibraltar Mass Driver. The vanguard of the invasion would be an orbital assault by the GINN landing teams. Without them, there was still a chance for Eurasia's Spanish and Portuguese Armies to drive them back.

"We could've easily continued on if Chairman Clyne didn't recall the L1 fleet. They, along with the Lorenz Base could've easily trimmed the Lunar fleets." Complained Malcolm, a slight hint of disgust when mentioning the Supreme Chairman's name.

While Siegel Clyne was beloved by most of the PLANTs as their guiding light to freedom, a growing number within ZAFT were becoming vocal opponents of the Supreme Chairman due to his progressive views on coexistence with the Naturals when they showed nothing but hatred for Coordinators. Such sentiment grew heavily after Bloody Valentine where Clyne, while not continuing to be vocal on his rhetoric after the tragedy, refused to back down from his positions. Were it not for Uroboros, then Clyne would likely have been voted out as Supreme Chairman, with Patrick Zala as his hopeful successor.

"While I am not a fan of the Chairman's order, it is one that is completely understandable. The PLANTs have been on edge ever since Bloody Valentine, and the appearance of the stealth fleet would likely cause chaos if word were to leak. Above all else, we must protect the PLANTs from another nuclear strike. No amount of ships destroyed on the moon are worth a single PLANT getting nuked." Rahil argued.

"But the N-Jammers will give us total victory in battle. No matter how good this stealth tech is, it can't function if it has no power to feed it with the fission reactors shutting down. The homeland fleet can easily wipe them out, they don't need to cripple Uroboros." Malcolm argued passionately, bloodlust evident in his eyes, wishing for as many Alliance ships to die by the end of the day as possible.

"If the Alliance developed this stealth technology without our knowledge and could park an entire asteroid in L5, then there is no telling what other secret toys they have in store. No chances can be taken, in fact the fact that Uroboros as a whole hasn't been scrapped is nothing but a blessing. What's done is done. All that matters is that we carry on with our orders and wipe out the energy grid. If we do that, then those stealth fleets will mean nothing and the war will be over by the end of the month." Rahil said, his tone making it clear that there would be no more debate.

In response Malcolm then turned quiet, though it was evident by his body language that he still had more to say on the matter. It wasn't that Rahil could blame him. While he had plenty of bad memories in India, growing up as a Coordinator in the Equatorial Union was heavenly compared to the cruelties of life as a genetically enhanced citizen of the Atlantic Federation. While Malcolm didn't talk much of his life on Earth, what little he did reveal depicted a bleak and hellish childhood comparable to the experiences of Malcolm's ancestors of the Jim Crow era.

_'How ironic that the birth nation of the first Coordinator, one that he was so loyal to until the very end, would be the one that hates our existence the most.'_ Rahil thought morbidly.

Before he would give out new orders to the fleet, Rahil turned to the ship's communication's officer, "Has there been any word of technical difficulties or general disturbances among the fleet?"

"No sir!", came back the reply.

Pleased that everything was alright, Rahil then issued new orders to the fleet.  
**  
April 1st, 70 CE. 4:30 A.M Colonial Standard. **_**ZAFT Giambattista Vico**_** . Heine Westenfluss POV**

Inside the confines of his cockpit, Redcoat Heine Westenfleuss sat rared and ready to go for launch. From what he had heard from the Captain, the fleet would begin Operation Uroboros within the hour. Soon after the first landings of the N-Jammers and ZAFT's Terrestrial Expeditionary Forces, they would enter into battle with the approaching OMNI fleet, using the power of the N-Jammers to wipe them out and force the beginning of the end of this war.

Currently Heine was in a state of increasing anxiety, though he would never admit or show it to his teammates to keep up the image of the calm and cool Redcoat that he liked to impose on those around him. It was not the prospect of going into battle itself, of taking one's life and risking your own, that caused Heine to be nervous. He had already fought and drawn blood in this short conflict multiple times, most notably at Yggdrasil, a battle they should've won if it weren't for the efforts of the damned Zero squadron, two of Heine's own teammates falling to the orange bastards. No, what bothered him about this upcoming operation was the nature of the mission itself, how Uroboros would wipe out most of the planet's energy grid and leave over half of the population without power.

Unlike some progressives within the ranks of ZAFT who believed that the war should be conducted in an honorable fashion, Heine was no fool and saw that the atrocity that was Junius Seven needed to be avenged. ZAFT not only had to avenge the colony, but they had to strike back at the Alliance harder and ensure that Earth would never dare think of nuking another PLANT again. When it came to those objectives alone, Uroboros was sure to be a total victory. Yet, was ZAFT about to go too far?

_'Any victory after this will have been for nothing if hatred still exists within the souls of Naturals.'_ Heine thought remorsefully.

While most thought that Uroboros would be a quick and easy victory, one obtained through a "bloodless" method unlike the mass destruction of nuclear warfare, Heine had done the numbers on his own and found disturbing results. Even if the war were to end by May 1st and ZAFT helped the defeated Alliance to clear the N-Jammers, millions at minimum would die from the lack of power and the global economy would enter into total freefall from the absence of a month's production.

While ZAFT will undertake Uroboros as a just response to Bloody Valentine, the people of Earth will hardly see it in such a manner. They will compare the two based on numbers alone and argue that Uroboros was little more than mass genocide, a warcrime on an equal scale to the Kashmir nuclear strikes. In return they shall double down on Bloody Valentine and erase any opposition, justifying it as a strategic strike meant to cripple the PLANTs and a just response to the so-called "Copernicus Dirty Bombing."

_'Dirty Bombing my ass.'_ Heine thought with revulsion. The Coordinators of the PLANTs didn't have to use their enhanced intelligence to easily figure out that the bombing was most likely a false flag birthed by Blue Cosmos. They had the most to gain from such an event, while anyone who knew anything of Siegel Clyne's character would know that the "Stalwart Shield" of the PLANTs would never dare to commit such a heinous crime when he had spent most of his life to secure peaceful existence of the Coordinators through non-violence.

In the end, facts didn't matter in an age where humanity was fueled by emotion and passion, keeping them from unlocking their full genetic potential over frivolous excuses. There was no such thing as universal adoration or love. For even when there exists the most noble, righteous, and good people; there would always be evil who would be ready to strike them down.

"Westenfluss Team. Admiral Sing has given us the green light. Operation Uroboros is at a go. Standby and prepare for launch." Heine's thoughts were interrupted by the ship's captain, informing him that the time to wait was over and the operation to end the war was to begin.

Readying himself quickly, Heine moved his GINN to the front of the hanger, the ship's mechanics scurrying to attack the launch cable to his suit so he could make his exit. His five teammates followed his lead and took their positions.

Wanting to give his subordinates one last pep talk, Heine opened the communications line, "Friends, we are about to embark in the greatest battle to ever take place in human history. Hours from now, the Earth Alliance shall experience total defeat as their industry collapses and their fleets are wiped out. Generations from now, our legacies shall live on as heroes who laid the foundation for the prosperity of the PLANTs and the freedom of Coordinators throughout the Earth sphere. Our grandchildren shall look to us as the greatest generation, men and women who made their lives of peace possible. Today we walk towards the battlefield as soldiers, tomorrow we shall leave as legends. The end of the war starts now, and it shall be a glorious tale to last to the end of time. For ZAFT!"

"For ZAFT!" His teammates yelled in high enthusiasm. Satisfied that his talk had done its intended purpose, Heine tuned out the bursting chatter to focus on his launch, the hanger doors having already opened and the mechanics signalling him to get into position.

In the end, Heine's thoughts and contemplations would mean little to the outcome of the war. The repercussions of Uroboros would be left to the Supreme Council. Under Chairman Clyne peace would soon be obtained and Heine had no doubts that the Stalwart Shield would do everything in his power to help Earth recover and ease the hatred brought about by this terrible war. It would be no easy task, and it would be one that would likely take years. Maybe, just maybe, everything would work out in the end and a future could be created where all Coordinators could exist without suffering hatred for their genes.

For now, Heine had a job to do. To eliminate as many Alliance units as possible and to ensure the success of Uroboros. With every Alliance member he killed, it would bring in return one child from the PLANTs who will never have to experience the cruelty of war and be able to live a life of peace and happiness.

The launch sign turned green, and with it Heine kicked his mobile suit into light, vernier engines roaring. "Heine Westenfluss, GINN. Taking off!"

His GINN accelerated heavily and launched itself away from the Nazca-class, the magnetic catapult launching him into the void of space. Towards the battlefield where he would become a legend as the Orange Blitz.

**A/N: First off in the chapter we have the POV of Eugene Booth, an OC Atlantic Federation Admiral who is unfortunately one of many with secret allegiance to Blue Cosmos,. While my interpretation of the Alliance wont be as ludicrously and cartoonish as they were in Destiny, they certainly won't be white knights in shining armor with Booth being a clear example of the worst that they have to offer. At this point Blue Cosmos doesn't have complete and total control of the Alliance, or even the Atlantic Federation, but their reach is far and deep with the war presenting a prime opportunity for radicalization of the population so they can take control. Whether Blue Cosmos shall be dominant by the end, or experience a dramatic downfall, shall be explored as we move forward.**

**Then we shift forward to ZAFT's perspective with Rahil Sing's POV and his conversation with his subordinate Malcolm Dupree, both of which are my OC's. Sing and Dupree exist to offer a wider viewpoint of ZAFT beyond the Le Creuscet team and other mobile pilots, and moving forward they shall be major players within the war. For some who may wonder why Sing has the title of "Admiral", it is only a provisional rank to give him temporary command of what is currently half of the ZAFT Space Force. After Uroboros commands he shall just be given command of the Vincent Oge along with a much smaller fleet, though still high ranking within ZAFT and in Patrick's good graces.**

**Lastly we have the appearance of Best Boi Heine. Along with Lunamaria and Meyrin, Heine was my favorite character in Destiny as he was one of the few members of the cast who was a regular person and not a trope. Plus he had an extremely likable personality and looked to have great leadership potential. I could definitely see him reforming Shin into shape had he survived where Athrun's method is slap and berate, only pushing Shin further away and not getting the message through. It's a shame that Destiny killed off one of its best and only high points due to Fukuda's weird fixation on killing off J-Pop VA's. Here Heine will be a main character on ZAFT's side, and let's just say that with Le Creuscet being out of the action for now, he's got some new doors opening for him.** **Lastly to answer a Guest review, Side 7 was not transported to the Cosmic Era. It's just that Zeon looked at L3 and saw a single O'Neil colony along with an asteroid, and simply assumed that it was Side 7 along with Luna II that came along for the ride. Both are back in the Universal Century.**

**Next time shall be Operation Uroboros and the beginning of the Bloody Valentine War's escalation. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	6. Operation Uroboros

**Earth Orbit**

With their arrival delayed under Admiral Singh's orders, Operation Uroboros began at 0600 Colonial Standard on April 1st. Once the ZAFT fleet positioned themselves in Earth's orbit, the first phase of Uroboros would begin with the deployment of the N-Jammers towards Iberia, France, and the British isles. 100 Nazca and Laurasia class vessels broke away from the main fleet to guard the freighters that would drop not only the N-Jammers, but the mobile suits of the 1st Terrestrial division that would act as the vanguard for Africa's invasion of Gibraltar.

Much to the dismay of Admiral Singh, the Alliance Orbital Fleet did not arrive to meet the ZAFT forces at the time Uroboros would begin. This was due to the delays of evacuating the ships that were filled with numerous Newtypes, the shifts causing a two and a half hour delay which pushed the arrival of the Alliance fleet from 0500 to 0730. While the delay of the Alliance forces did allow for the Gibraltar invasion and the beginning of Western Europe's energy collapse, it also had the potential drawback of forcing Alliance space vessels to withdraw from open combat with ZAFT, preventing ZAFT from fully exploiting the N-Jammers to eliminate substantial portions of the Alliance Space Forces before they were able to replace their fission reactors.

Fortunately for Singh and the fleet under him, the Orbital Fleet was led by a bloodthirsty brute of Blue Cosmos. One who would not let ZAFT "Defile Earth" and would rain down nuclear fury for the Coordinators daring to damage the blue and pure world.

The coming hours would make this sentiment one of the most ironic in history.

**AFS**_** Woodrow Wilson**_

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN WESTERN EUROPE HAS GONE DARK?!" Barked Admiral Booth in a highly unprofessional and loud tone.

The high volume of the outburst caused many within the bridge of the _Wilson_ to slightly wince, though any temporary pain was quickly forgotten by the ominous meaning of the communication officer's statement.

The Lieutenant that gave the news turned towards the Admiral with his body slightly shaking, fear overwhelming him both from the Admiral and what was being displayed on his screen.

"Sssi-ir! What I mean is that not only have all communications networks across Western Europe, from Lisbon to Paris, have been completely turned off, but the region itself has quite literally gone dark. It's still a bit before sunrise, but from a visual standpoint alone all the urban lights have been completely turned off. I can't read any power signatures throughout the region."

Various gasps of horror could be heard throughout the bridge of the Wilson. It appeared that what just occurred was no mere invasion to seize a Mass Driver. Rather, ZAFT had somehow created a weapon to disrupt the energy grid of multiple nations.

"Has ZAFT unleashed nuclear weapons on Europe?" Admiral Booth asked. He knew that somehow, most likely through the racetraitor filled Eurasians, ZAFT had managed to acquire nukes. Siegel Clyne had made a public statement after Junius Seven that any future nuclear attacks on the PLANTs would grant a retaliation against the lunar cities, a partial reason for the political deadlock of the past six weeks.

_'Those Patchworkers weren't just content with Copernicus, now they want to wipe out all life on Earth.'_ Thought Booth with fury.

"No sir, I'm not reading any fallout or spikes in radiation across Western Europe. Whatever ZAFT unleashed, it's not nuclear in nature." The communications Lieutenant replied.

"Could it be some sort of super EMP?" the CIC Lieutenant Commander thought aloud.

"If the PLANTs were able to launch a bio weapon throughout the Earth sphere mere hours ago, then anything is possible. No matter what trick they may have up their sleeve, we will not allow it to stand. Send a message to the fleet, we will continue forward with the operation and shall stop ZAFT at all costs. Their fleet shall be obliterated for violating Earth. For the pre...For the Alliance!" Booth said, nearly shouting Blue Cosmos' motto, a few members of the bridge crew taking careful notice.

_'What the hell does it matter anyway? At this point we've been entirely vindicated.'_ Booth thought. Not only did the Coordinators unleash two bio weapons to eradicate the human populations, but they also unleashed a WMD to destroy any remnants of civilization on Earth.

To Booth, this was proof of the evil of the genetically enhanced, how George Glenn's spawn must be eradicated and sent to the lowest depths of hell. An action that he would gladly perform with his own hands.

**ZAFT **_**Vincent Ogé**_**.**

"Those idiot Naturals fell for the trap." Said Malcolm Dupree, a wide smile adorning his face at news of the Alliance fleet charging head on to meet their ZAFT counterparts.

"I wouldn't say it's intelligence or genes that made them act that way. Without proper information, in their point of view, we just committed the instantaneous mass murder of three hundred million people. It's obvious that they would rush to meet us to avenge those they think lost and prevent such an event from happening in the rest of their nations." Singh said.

In the end, all that mattered was that the Alliance would continue with their attack, presenting ZAFT with a prime opportunity to weed out their presence in space.

"Send a message to the fleet, all ships are to engage the Mariana Plan. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fleets shall take position to flank the Alliance vessels. If the Alliance fleet shifts to meet any pincers, then we corrections is to be made at once. They must not engage until the 1st has made contact. Lastly, N-Jammers must not be active until the Alliance fleet is within the 40 km mark. For ZAFT!" Singh shouted at the top of his lungs.

"FOR ZAFT!" The bridge crew responded in kind.

**Earth Orbit 7:00 A.M Colonial Standard.**

With the Alliance fleet still a half an hour away from the ZAFT forces, Admiral Booth decided that it would be in the Alliance's best interest to have the first strike. An order was given for a grand sortie of Mobile Armors to launch in order to weaken the front lines of the ZAFT fleet so that they could be eliminated completely once the Alliance vessels could get in range.

Currently the ZAFT fleet was divided into five components. One was the orbital drop fleet filled with a collection of freighters for Uroboros and the warships guarding them. The second, or rather the 1st fleet, was the main battle fleet of 500 vessels that was currently on a direct course with the Alliance Orbital fleet. Three more fleets of 100 ships each were moving to flank the Orbital Fleet, the 2nd being on the galactic west of the Orbital fleet while the 3rd and 4th were on the Galactic East of the Orbital fleet.

Peculiarly, the 2nd-4th fleets were not attempting to close the distance with the Orbital fleet, rather trying to gain as much distance as possible from the Alliance vessels. As such, Booth directed the Mobile Armors to 1st fleet as they were the most immediate threat. At the same time he ordered the fleet to close the distance between each other in order to prevent portions from being picked off from ZAFT vessels, unaware that he was completely falling into the trap that Singh had laid out.

3,000 Mobile Armors launched from the various Alliance ships and began to make their journey to ZAFT lines. From the Atlantic (and South African Mobeius), to the East Asian Azure, and the Eurasian Valkyrie, hundreds of pilots from different nations and all walks of life raced to meet ZAFT head on and eliminate them to save the Earth.

After six minutes, the Mobile Armors were within range of the ZAFT fleet with hundreds of Nazca and Laurasia ships firing their anti-MA ammunition, along with scores of missiles, to thin out the approaching Armors. While dozens were eliminated, the Armors continued forward, their motion akin to a swarm of angry wasps that had their nest disturbed.

At 0709, the Mobile Armors made contact with both the ZAFT ships and their GINN compliments.

**ZGMF-1017 GINN. Heine Westenfluss.**

If anyone within ZAFT attempted to say in front of Heine that the Natural Mobile Armors were worthless trash, he'd walk right up to them, and punch them in the face while saying they were full of shit. It was a bit of an overreaction sure, but it was an ample one to describe how Heine felt in this situation when he and the other GINN's of the 1st fleet were surrounded by Mobile Armors.

While each of the Sponsor Nation's Mobile Armors were obviously weaker than a GINN on an individual scale, when you grouped Mobile Armors together in pure numbers they were a frightening locust that could barely be dealt any damage to. This was mostly due to the intricate CIC network that each of the Mobile Armors were locked into, allowing instantaneous communication and sharing of data feeds to every Mobile Armor currently in deployment. So long as there was numbers, any individual MA could rely on five or six of their brothers and sisters to come for support and corner any ZAFT vessels or suits.

It was thanks to this that Heine was blasting his GINN's thrusters into maximum acceleration, intricately dancing between the various ships of the fleet's frontline in order to avoid fire from his pursuing Moebius compliment. Every second Heine would shift to the side or change direction to make sure that his mobile suit could never stay in one spot. It was a performance almost impossible for any Natural, but for Heine he had his genetically enhanced vision and perception to guide him through the exertion that he was currently facing.

When Heine traveled under the underbelly of a Laurasia ship, his immediate sensors showed his six Moebius pursuits no longer following him due to the Laurasia's anti-air capabilities along with a fellow GINN. Now having a potential to strike back, Heine shifted his suit and launched the GINN upwards in a motion that would make it appear to somersault over the Laurasia. Bringing his rifle to take careful aim, Heine spotted two Moebius Armors near him that practically had their backs turned to the GINN, and unleashed fire. His 76 mm rounds tore apart the practically paper thin Moebius', claiming the two in quick succession before their comrades had any time to react.

Heine then shifted his rifle to target a third Armor, which was currently attempting to shift itself to lock on him. This action would end in failure with Heine striking the Armor down. A fourth Moebius would be taken out by the guns of the Laurasia, while a fifth would be cleaved in half by the second GINN that had distracted their attention. The sixth Moebius, which had been at the edge of the fight, had quickly retreated once their comrades had gone down.

"Goddamn Test Tubes!" Heine heard over the open communications channel, causing him to emit a small sigh. It seems that the one Atlantean or South African pilot they left alive would be the most bigoted. An unfortunate irony that had probably played out several times already in this short war.

"Thanks for the Assist!" Heine said to his comrade.

"No problem. I'm going to stay back with the Laurasia, it's my ship. Go out there and kick some ass for me would you?" The second GINN responded in a female tone.

"Sure." Heine said. Racing back into the fight to hopefully find his teammates and have them group together. His last kill had brought up the number of MA kills that Heine had today to 16. While it was an impressive count in the short timespan of the engagement, it didn't feel enough to Heine as already his GINN had caught a number of ZAFT vessels destroyed on radar, while the number of mobile suit husks that filled the vicinity were beginning to rise by the minute.

Seeing two of his comrades engaged with a mixture of Azure and Valkyries two kilometers ahead, Heine pushed his thrusters and speed to join the fight.

**Earth Orbit**

The first thirty minutes of what would later be dubbed as the Battle of April Fools, or the Second Great Orbital Battle, occurred in a manner that was not too dissimilar to previous engagements. While ZAFT had the advantage in quality, many of their units would be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers that the Alliance displayed. In the first half hour of the battle, 273 GINN's would be lost while 18 Nazca and 11 Laurasia ships would be destroyed. The main factor that prevented the ZAFT casualties from rising higher was due to the spreading out of the ZAFT 1st fleet, an action which prevented ships or GINN's from being grouped together and thus forced the Alliance MA compliment to divide their forces. These losses were not without compensation though as near 1800 Mobile Armors were eliminated. At 0725, the Armors fled back to Alliance lines in order to rest, repair, and rearm for the next phase of the engagement.

Until now the ZAFT fleets were fortunate enough for the Earth vessels to be too far away to do any proper damage beyond distant missile volleys, most of which were easily countered by ZAFT's own missiles thanks to the sheer distance between the two forces giving them enough time to return fire and defend themselves. While the Orbital fleet had thousands of tactical and strategic nukes at their disposal, they were too far away and ZAFT's forces were too spread out to allow for a decisive nuclear strike without the Alliance sacrificing most of their nukes for a fraction of the ZAFT forces. As such, Booth decided to keep his nukes in check until they were able to force the ZAFT fleet to condense together, allowing for a few major strikes to wipe out most of their forces.

Unfortunately for the Alliance, they would never get the chance to play the nuclear card. For as they came ever so close to firing range, the full horrors of the N-Jammer was about to be unleashed upon them.

**ZAFT **_**Vincent Ogé**_**.**

While it pained Singh's heart to lose thousands of soldiers of ZAFT within near minutes, it was a necessary sacrifice that had to be done in order to keep the Alliance unaware for as long as possible until they could spring the N-Jammers.

_'Years from now, they shall become martyrs and heroes, eternal examples of how a Coordinator should be.'_ Singh thought remorselessly.

When the Alliance ships where a minute within the 40 kilometer line, the trap was activated.

"All ships, launch all available mobile suits and unleash them upon the Orbital Fleet. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th; the final stage of Marianas is now complete. Good hunting." Singh said.

"Activate the N-Jammer!" Malcolm ordered.

Within mere seconds, hundreds of N-Jammers across the fleet came to life, making the act of nuclear fission an impossibility. From this point on, thanks to the radio jamming of the Jammers, the ZAFT fleet would be in a near state of communications silence, any long-range transmissions needing to be done through flares or a telephone line of laser communications from ship to ship. It mattered little though, as each ZAFT ship was specifically trained to operate under high autonomy, making each vessel a deadly killing machine that needed to only follow the guidelines set for them.

When the N-Jammers turned on, the Alliance Orbital Fleet, which was mere moments ago racing towards ZAFT at full speed, seemed to die within seconds. For hundreds of cruisers, battleships, and carriers; their nuclear reactors and drives were killed instantly, ceasing all motion beyond the kinetic thrust forced upon them by Newton's First Law. While the ships had an emergency power system that gave them enough energy for life support and weaponry, they had no way to change their course beyond the minor tugs of their thrusters. This would not be enough force to alter their course, leading many to head straight for ZAFT lines on a death sentence.

Around twenty seconds after the activation of the N-Jammers, hundreds of Nazcas and Laurasias that made up the first fleet began to open fire on the Alliance vessels. Bright green beams along with the yellow flashes of conventional kinetic rounds danced their way across the battlefield, hitting the Alliance ships within less than a minute. Without any option to turn a different course, dozens of ships were either destroyed or heavily damaged in the first volley.

After continuing to fire for another minute, the 1st fleet stopped, signalling the thousands of GINN's at their side to fly straight at the enemy with the intent to kill. At the same time the 1st fleet launched a missile barrage directed towards the Alliance ships. The sensors of the GINN's allowed the ZAFT MS pilots to avoid the missile trails and seemingly escort them as they made first contact with the enemy. When the distance was closed, hundreds of missiles found their marks, while the GINN's unleashed themselves upon the Orbital fleet, like a school of hungry sharks tearing being presented with a grand feast.

While the 1st fleet engaged in battle, the 2nd and 3rd fleet closed in on both flanks of the Orbital fleet, while the 4th fleet made a grand trip to the rear of the Orbital fleet. Within this dense pocket, there would be no escape. All members of the Alliance would either die, or survive through a miracle.

**AFS Woodrow Wilson**

"FUCKING PATCHWORKERS!" Admiral Booth cursed at the top of his lungs, not caring one bit about who heard him using the slur. At this point if anyone objected he'd personally shoot them for being race traitors, fortunately no one on the bridge seemed to join the sentiment, as everyone was freaking out over the loss of power and their nuclear drives going dead.

Booth had just been informed by engineering that the issue was not some sort of electrical interference with their power systems, but that they could not get their nuclear fission drive to work, at all. The reactor itself was perfectly intact and all systems should be working normally, but they could not get the uranium atoms to split apart.

Somehow, not only did the Coordinators concoct a plague that was on its path of killing tens of millions of Naturals, but they had managed to defy the laws of physics and keep the atom together. It was a scientific impossibility, one that could only come from the foul and insidious mind of the genetically altered.

_'And those goddamn hippies say there's no difference and they're still human!'_ Booth thought angrily. This was why the Coordinators needed to be wiped out, if they could create WMD's that simply said "Fuck You!" to the natural laws of the world, then what hope did the Naturals have of ever rising out from oppression and standing as equals. NONE!

"Is there any way we can broadcast to the rest of the fleet?!" Booth asked, desperate to get some sort of control of the situation, even if it was to lead the fleet back to Luna so that they could avoid being massacred.

"I can only send a direct radio message to the nearest twenty ships, and even then it's going to be extremely weak and hazy. Laser communications are still open, and I have several from the fleet asking for new orders sir." The communications Lieutenant said warily, his body shaking with apprehension over the situation that they were now facing themselves in.

Seeing as how he and the ships of the vanguard had little escape over the upcoming operation, Booth sighed and began to accept his fate. He would most likely die today, his death brought about by the space monsters breaking reality and embarking on their campaign to exterminate the Naturals of the Earth sphere. His only option was to try and use what little time he had left to coordinate a breakaway and make sure that any ships that were not affected could escape back to the moon. Hopefully after the atrocities committed today by ZAFT, the Alliance would wake up and pull the kid gloves off, deploying the fleet to destroy every single PLANT until L5 was an empty region of space.

"Send a laser message to the fleet. All ships whose fission reactors have been shut down are to release their Mobile Armor and have them group up with the rest of the fleet. For ships affected like ours, we are to make a last stand and send every single round that we have towards the Coordinator lines-"

"Sir, we are unable to get a lock on the ZAFT vessels." Said the Lieutenant Commander in charge of the Wilson's weaponry, breaking Booth's momentary charisma. Booth was tempted to get a harsh glare to the Commander, but gave up. It wasn't his subordinate's fault, it was that damn superweapon.

"Just attempt to fire with a visual lock, we have hundreds of ships deployed here, one of us is bound to hit the Coordinators by pure luck, and unless they can somehow screw Newton's First Law, all of our kinetics can still make contact." The closing distance also meant that beam weaponry was more than fair usage, though it also meant that they could be shot at as well.

"Total nuclear freedom is authorized by my command. Also transfer command of the fleet to Admiral Tao as the next in-line." Fortunately the East Asian Admiral was at the rear lines, and as such was most likely able to avoid his ship being impacted by the unknown superweapon."

The communication Lieutenant typed in a frenzy at the fastest pace in his life, "The message has been sent.

"Good. Men, today is a good day to-" Admiral Eugene Booth would never get a chance to finish his last words as a black and purple GINN shot itself to several meters in front of the Wilson's bridge, then firing with its 500 mm rifle to completely destroy the bridge, killing the men aboard through the massive round's shrapnel.  
**  
ZGMF-1017 GINN Hilda Harken**

Greencoat Hilda Harken beamed a wide satisfied smile as she eliminated what reports claimed to be the flagship of the Orbital fleet, therefore incapacitating the Alliance vessels and giving ZAFT another piece of total victory.

Nearby her teammates Mars and Herbert were also at work. Mars was using his GINN's missiles to help Hilda destroy the Nimitz-class Carrier, while Herbert was using both his 76mm rifle and sword to eliminate the scurrying Mobile Armors that were fleeing the dying wreck. With a few more shots from her rifle aimed towards the center of the ship, and Mars' assistance, the carrier exploded with its hull collapsing and soon becoming nothing more than a scurrying wreck.

Fortunately for Hilda, her elimination of the bridge made the ship kill hers, something that her teammate groaned about playfully over the radio.

"Come on Hilda, that ship was mine and you know it." Mars lightfully complained. He already had three ship kills, two Drakes and a Nelson. The carrier was Hilda's fourth, while Herbert had only managed two Drakes. In the end though with the dozens of Mobile Armors that they eliminated together, they would all be definitive aces by April 2nd. And with how Hilda had eliminated the flagship, their rise to Redcoats was assured.

"Don't worry, I'll let you handle the next one. Or maybe we should let Herbert have a chance to play catch up." Hilda said. At the same time Herbert had climbed up to join them with his having eliminated the last of the Wilson's armors.

"You know you guys wouldn't get your kills if I didn't clear the way for you with the Armors." Herbert complained. Even now with the N-Jammer eliminating the Armor's communication networks that made each one little more than a headless chicken, they were still quite deadly based on raw numbers. Since the N-Jammers activation, Hilda had seen a fair number of GINN's go down with their pilots, a sign that even with the power to keep the atom intact, that Naturals were still a force to be reckoned with.

While Hilda enjoyed the small break in the atmosphere, she didn't want her wingmates to get completely relaxed and leave themselves open. They still had a mission to perform after all. "Guys, how much ammunition do you have left? I still have eight rounds." Hilda asked.

"Six missiles and two clips." Mars said.

"Five clips." Herbert replied.

Hilda looked around the battlefield, then settled her gaze upon an East Asian cruiser which was doing its best to push itself away from the ZAFT fleet with its thrusters. Currently there seemed to be neither Mobile Armors or GINN's surrounding the lone ship, making it perfect prey.

"Let's finish off the East Asian ship, 23 degrees from your positions." Hilda said, allowing both her wingmates to be alerted of their next target. Afterwords lets head back and reload." Hilda said, both Mars and Herbert voicing their agreement on the comms.

Within her cockpit, Hilda smiled at the ongoing course of the battle. While she wasn't out for the blood of all Naturals, she believed that they had to eliminate as many ships today as possible in order to send a devastating morale blow to the Alliance. The sheer size of this defeat combined with the elimination of Earth's energy grid would force them no other choice but to surrender. Then they could all go home, and Hilda's family could live the rest of their days in the peaceful PLANTs, her nephew growing up in a world of love instead of hatred.

"Alright boys, let's get to work, ZAFT isn't paying us by the hour." Hilda shouted, producing smirks on both Mars and Herbert. "On my mark-"

"JET STREAM ATTACK!" All three shouted, launching themselves back in the fight once more.

From this day forward, these three Coordinators would enter into the halls of legends as the Black Tri-Stars.

**ZSFS Cerberus**

"GAauaAh!"

With a heavy bolt and cold sweat pouring form his body, Lieutenant Miguel Gaia shot up on his bed, awakening from his Newtype-induced coma.

"Those goddamn thieves stole our name!"

**Earth Orbit**

From the instant ZAFT activated the N-Jammer, any hope for the Alliance to come away with a victory was completely wiped out. Barring a miracle on the same scale as the April Fools Miracle that brought Zeon into the Cosmic Era, the battle would be an assured victory for ZAFT.

Without their nuclear reactors to help them move, hundreds of Alliance vessels became sitting targets for the incoming onslaught of GINNs. Six weeks of accumulating turmoil over the Bloody Valentine tragedy was released within seconds as hundreds of GINN's unleashed their various firearms onto the Alliance vessels. With Alliance CIWS emplacements being entirely run by automatic guidance systems linked to radar, there was little to no direct opposition from the ships due to them being unable to lock on the GINNs. Most who did take a direct hit were able to shrug it off due to the GINN's sturdy armor, while a few unfortunate Coordinators would see their lives lost due to arrogance and ill luck.

Without a communications link to the rest of the fleet, the Mobile Armors scurried about the battlefield as little more than scared chickens running away from a pack of coyotes. Very few of the Alliance pilots present for Operation Uroboros had any battle experience in this war, while six decades of peace within the Earth sphere and the nonexistence of any previous space war made most MA pilots completely unprepared for the quick and harsh style of space warfare. This made them easy targets for their genetically enhanced opponents, who took a relatively easy time in slowly and methodically eliminating the metal hornets that danced around them. Some ZAFT pilots killed out of duty, others did it with a high sadistic enjoyment as payback for the decades of oppression that Coordinators have suffered.

The only positive for the Alliance vessels struggling to survive was how the extremely close distance allowed them to shoot back at ZAFT with little time to evade. Just as Admiral Booth predicted, while they would be unable to hit cleanly with their radar down, the sheer quantity of hundreds upon hundreds of energy beams, missiles, and kinetic rounds would be able to hit a number of ZAFT vessels, even by pure luck. While most of the ZAFT 1st fleet were able to escape unscathed, there were dozens who were hit. For some, there was little more than minor scrapes, for others, there was serious damage with hull breaches around the ship. An unfortunate few would see their ships destroyed instantly, while the damaged were being swarmed by Mobile Armors who were trying to take as many Coordinators down with them as possible.

While the vanguard of the Alliance Orbital fleet was being massacred in a manner that would make the Battle of San Jacinto look like a Mexican victory, the rest of the fleet desperately attempted to escape to Luna. In these actions, around 700 ships would be able to leave the battlefield without heavy damage. Unfortunately, the other ZAFT fleets that Booth had neglected in his focus on the 1st soon closed in, creating a tight pocket around the Orbital fleet from which there was no escape of the effects of the N-Jammer. Within an hour, all of the ships of the Orbital fleet were caught in the trap, thousands of vessels having their fission reactors shut off completely.

Wanting desperately to break out, Admiral Tao ordered for the fleet to focus all of their firepower and efforts on a single weak point of the 3rd fleet to create a pocket from which they could hopefully escape to Luna. Unfortunately, the minute acceleration of the thrusters kept them moving at a snail's pace in comparison to the fast pace of the ZAFT vessels. Any holes that were created were quickly filled up. The totality of the ZAFT forces unleashed their firepower on the Alliance, while swarms of GINN's made the pocket their playground as they were quick to decimate anything that belonged to the Alliance.

**ZGMF-1017 GINN Heine Westenfluss**

With the last shots of his magazine, Heine destroyed the Eurasian battleship before him, various explosions occurring across the hull while a number of flames were popping and then going out due to the lack of oxygen in the void of space.

The destruction of this battleship would mark Heine's fifth ship kill during Uroboros, a stark climb from the total two ship kills that he had made in the six weeks prior.

_'If every other pilot did half as good as I did then the Alliance fleet should be well on its way to complete destruction.'_ Heine thought. Sure the battle was not without its risks as Heine had personally seen a few of his comrades get killed, but with each ZAFT pilot that was brought down, it appeared that ten ships and dozens of Mobile Armors took their place.

From the destruction of the Eurasian vessel, Heine could faintly see through his suit's camera a small grouping of three lifeboats that were being launched out before the ship collapsed. Heine was about to ignore these boats and find another target, only for him to then watch as each of the lifeboats were fired upon after the other, resulting in the deaths of everyone aboard.

Swerving his mobile suit to meet the source of the warcrime, Heine found the fire coming from a GINN that was positioned a couple hundred meters to his left. The GINN had not stopped firing and continued to empty every last round to make sure there were no survivors.

Enraged at the display, Heine flew to the suit, initiating skin contact.

"This is Redcoat Heine Westenfluss. Pilot, I demand your name, rank, and a damn good reason why you fired on non-combatants!"

A masculine voice on the other end gave a loud 'Tch!' to Heine's request. "Fuck you! Those were not non-combatants, they were either Blue Cosmos or their dogs. I'm only giving them the same _mercy_ that they showed us at Junius Seven. It's about time after decades of being treated as sub-human by those backwards Naturals!"

Before Heine could retort, the GINN that he was speaking to was suddenly hit by a Moebius that shot straight towards the cockpit in a kamikaze strike. Detecting several enemy signatures, Heine kicked his thrusters into a heavy burst, pushing him several dozen meters to the rear while the suit in front of him was hit by a combination of linear rounds and missiles from a squadron of mixed mobile armor, killing the GINN in a fiery explosion.

"BURN IN HELL YOU FUCKING SPACE MONSTERS!" Shouted a woman's voice over the communications channel, joined by a mixture of several voices of varying accents who all gave similar slurs to Heine.

_'You just killed the real monster idiots.'_ Heine thought remorsefully. Most likely they had witnessed the other GINN eliminate the retreating lifeboats, and then concluded that Heine was coming towards him to give him a congratulations after he had already destroyed the Eurasian battleship.

Sighing that he had to engage in what was already a forgone conclusion, Heine readied his rifle and shot straight towards the oncoming Armors, aiming his rounds to hit as many within the cockpit as possible on the first run.

After two minutes, Heine had eliminated all the nearby enemies, eight husks of Mobile Armors floating around him as the surrounding space flashed in a series of explosions and colorful beam exchanges.

Running low on ammunition, Heine headed back to the _Giambattista Vico_. As he did so, the young German Coordinator felt any excitement from the beginning of the operation be quickly evaporated, being replaced by a large sense of dread and melancholy.

At this point ZAFT had won a complete and total victory, most likely the greatest one-sided battle in the history of humanity. Despite this, thousands of pilots like him and the rest of the fleet still stayed to try to eliminate as many Alliance ships as possible, for no other purpose than to make the body count rise higher with each second.

While he knew that ZAFT had the moral right of the war and that there had to be a number of Blue Cosmos mixed in the opposing fleet, there were most likely tens of thousands of men and women who were simply doing what they believed to be a duty to their nation. Heck, they might have even killed a few Coordinators mixed in the Eurasian units. Countless families would lose precious loved ones today, a good number of them having lost their beloved member well after the point that ZAFT achieved complete space supremacy.

Most likely the war criminal that he had just confronted was not the only one of his kind in their ranks, numerous others probably committing the same or worse atrocities at this very moment. Just the thought that there were members of ZAFT who could get away with actions that made them no better than Blue Cosmos grunts made Heine feel sick to his stomach.

In the end, all he could do was simply fulfill his mission, and hope that all of the death and suffering both here and on Earth would force the Alliance leaders to surrender as soon as possible.

Unfortunately for Heine, this was only the bloody beginning of the most destructive war in human history.

**ZAFT **_**Vincent Ogé**_**.**

To say that the current course of the battle had exceeded Rahil Singh's expectations was a ludicrous understatement. Going into Uroboros, he had hoped to cripple the Orbital fleet, now it appeared that they were on the verge of completely destroying the Alliance forces.

Right now at current estimates, at least 3,000 Alliance ships had been destroyed, well over half of the fleet while the rest were probably suffering from some amount of damage. If there was a single Alliance vessel that somehow managed to survive untouched it would be a complete surprise to the Indian Whitecoat.

Such a glorious victory did not come without a price however, as after the activation of the N-Jammers there were an additional 35 ships that were unfortunately destroyed by the sheer quantity of barrages from the Alliance vessels as well as some frightening suicide swarms by the remaining Mobile Armors. The Mobile Armors were especially scary to watch as it appeared that with certain death around the corner, pilots were refusing to surrender or retreat and instead do everything to take as many Coordinators with them. Soon Singh had to order at least one GINN to guard every ship, something which he was sure more than a few pilots disobeyed with the convenient excuse of the N-Jammers interfering with communications.

While Singh wanted to leave not a single remaining ship left, it appeared that unfortunately logistics would cause him to cut the operation short. Currently from the information displayed on his monitor, the Ogé was currently down to a third of its ammunition. If Singh used his ship as a standard template for the rest of the fleet, it meant that every other ZAFT vessel was suffering the same predicament. At best some would have around half of their ammunition stores left, while some would most likely be down to a tenth at worst.

There was also the ammunition of the GINN's to take into consideration. The mobile suits were created as rapid-deployment weapons that were supposed to decapitate the enemy in a quick stroke. They weren't meant for long engagements like this, meaning soon they would have nothing more than their swords to charge head on against the might of the Alliance.

While it slightly disgusted Singh to think of it in such a manner, he did not have enough ammunition to kill every single Alliance vessel currently trapped within the pocket.

There was also the primary mission of Uroboros, the elimination of the Earth's energy grid to care about. At this current time the freighters for Uroboros were finished dropping the N-Jammers on Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. Along with this, the droppings for Africa were about to be wrapped up with South Africa now being encased fully in the N-Jammer's effects while the 2nd and 3rd Terrestrial Divisions landed at Egypt and Southern Sudan respectively.

Right now the 5th fleet was making its way to cover the Middle East and Russia, beginning the long journey to East Asia and the Americas. With each passing hour they would grow further in distance away from Singh's forces and be open to attack. If the Alliance decided to launch all of their lunar forces, or more fearfully the stealth fleets that they had bizarrely kept near the asteroids all the way til now, then it would be over for Uroboros.

Satisfied for now that he had wiped out a tenth of the Alliance Space Forces and that Europe and Southern Africa's energy grids were being wiped out, Singh decided to call for an end to the battle.

"Send a laser communication to the entire fleet. The battle is to be concluded under my order and we are to group up with the 5th fleet to support them in carrying out the last stages of Uroboros. Any stragglers who stay behind after the next hour will be considered to be in derelict of their duty." Singh ordered.

Malcolm Dupree looked towards his commanding officer with a not very hidden face of disgust, his eyes making it clearly evident that he wanted the battle to continue. Before he could voice his protest, Singh explained his orders.

"The fleet is running dangerously low on ammunition and we cannot leave the 5th unguarded. If we can't eliminate the Orbital fleet, then we shall be overwhelmed by the stealth fleets. Uroboros has to be seen to the end, with the elimination of the Atlantic Federation's energy grid being the final victory." Singh said, hoping that the mentioning of Malcolm's abusive homeland would get him to change his mind.

It seemed to do the trick as Malcolm's face twisted into a resting position that stated while he didn't like it, he would follow orders. "Send the signal flare for a tactical withdrawal. Order all mobile suits back." Malcolm ordered. Satisfied that his XO was compliant, Singh turned to the great task of organizing his fleet and trying to wrangle in any junkies still high off of victory.

By noon Colonial Standard, ZAFT had completely withdrawn the battlefield and made their way to join the 5th fleet in the N-Jammer droppings. By April 3rd, every member of the Alliance would see a supermajority of their energy production completely wiped out within hours, starting the great April Fools crisis that would see the greatest death toll in human history.

When ZAFT withdrew, they left a highly traumatized remnant of a fleet that was completely broken, desperately racing to get to the safety of Luna and away from the space monsters that had screwed physics over and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their comrades.

From the testimony of the survivors and victors of the battle, a chain of events would be set into motion that would see the Principality of Zeon make its formal debut in the Cosmic Era, one that would be bathed in iron and blood.

**A/N: So once again, while I know that technically this chapter could be canon, there are some subtle changes that will have big butterflies moving forward, with the immediate 24 hours following Uroboros changing the war from canon entirely. So please have patience as I promise that canon is going to be off the rails soon.**

**One thing that I liked about writing this chapter was that it was my first official war chapter, compared to the battle chapters of Gihren's Glory which are all practiced wargames. In addition, from what I've seen I'm one of the few if only Seed authors who has ever tried to depict Uroboros, which when you think about it must be a pure horror experience for any Alliance soldier. This chapter will help serve as a template to any future large battles both in here and Gihren's Glory so please give constructive feedback so I can give you guys the best written action sections as possible.**

**Also yes, Gaia and the rest of the Black Tri-Stars are now Newtypes.**

**Next chapter shall see a few reactions from the Alliance side over the April Fools Miracle and Uroboros, and we'll also see Orb make its first steps towards initiating contact with Zeon. Thanks for reading and hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!**


	7. Newtypes, New Futures

**Mu La Flaga POV**

When Mu La Flaga awoke, he found himself on the beach of a tropical island, the waves splashing around him with the soothing sounds of the ocean and tropical wildlife filling his surroundings.

"What the hell?" Mu swore to himself. The last he remembered, he was inside of the Ptolemaeus Lunar Base, attending a meeting on the upcoming ZAFT operation. He remembered how and many others of the squad collapsed in pain, their souls being lit on fire as something strange was occurring in their bodies.

While Mu could feel the distant pain of his squadmates, he saw something different. He saw a woman, the most beautiful woman that he had ever laid his eyes on, the living embodiment of perfection. Despite the fact that he had never seen her once in his life, Mu _knew_ that she was the love of his life, someone close to him that he needed to protect at all costs. He tried to reach out to her, to get into contact with her, however with each step he took the distance between the two grew farther. Mu ran, desperately doing everything he could to close the distance, but it was to no avail. She kept on getting farther and farther away, until she was nothing but a distant image, completely out of his reach.

To Mu, this was the worst experience that he ever felt in his life, him being at his most vulnerable and being unable to reach out and hold onto the woman he loved. Yet despite all of this, he had never seen her and didn't know who she was.

Mu got up and attempted to find his bearings, and found himself completely surprised that neither his uniform nor body were wet or covered with sand despite him being planted face first on the beach and his pants reaching out into the water. Mu reached out and made contact with the water, yet felt complete emptiness. Well...not quite. It was hard to describe, but he knew that the water was there and that he was making contact with it, but he couldn't feel the familiar wet sensation and his hands remained completely dry.

"So I'm in a lucid dream huh? Well...I wish for a stack of a billion dollars and a spaceship!" Mu shouted, yet finding no change to his immediate environment.

Mu shrugged his shoulders, "Eh, worth the shot." He said to himself. Then again, he never really had lucid dreams before so he didn't know how they worked and he probably couldn't just pop things into existence. At the very least, it had to be a lucid dream. He couldn't just transport from the moon to a deserted island instantaneously while also not feel water and sand.

Bored and hoping that the dream would soon end, Mu began to walk around the shore of the island. In the distance he spotted what looked like a couple, a blonde man and a brunette woman, walking side by side with hands along the beach until they stopped.

"Hey there!" Mu yelled, waving to the two. Neither one responded, once more affirming to Mu that this was most likely a dream. Wanting to see just what the heck his inner conscious had cooked up, Mu decided to travel and see just who these two were.

Mu briskly jogged over to the two lovers, who seemed to be having an intimate moment. When he got close enough to get a good look, he stopped dead in his tracks and stood in shock. The brunette was the same woman who he was trying to reach out to in the squad room. Or at the very least, _appeared_ to be the same woman.

The woman who he had been chasing earlier was far younger, most likely in her early to mid twenties. This person was slightly older, either in her late twenties or early thirties. Despite being older, she was just as if not more beautiful, radiating an aura of charm and grace mixed with wisdom and maturity. She was sporting a tropical sundress, one that did nothing but help to radiate her unwordly appearance in combination with the exotic environment.

"Murrue." Mu whispered softly, himself surprised by the name he uttered. Somehow he knew that this was the name of the angel before him, it just felt right.

"Murrue. Murrue. Murrue. Murrue Ramius." Mu said, each word feeling so strong and right.

Mu then looked to the man on her left, and found himself completely stupefied when the man appeared to be none over than an older version of _him_. His hair was far longer, slightly just staying above his shoulders and in an unruly mess. He also seemed to wear an Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, something that fit well with the environment. Another striking feature that Mu noticed was that he had some sort of ugly scar that went through the center of his left cheek and then branched off into a fork to split across his nose and forehead. Despite this ugly feature, Murrue didn't seem to mind at all, gazing at him with complete adoration and love.

The fact that Mu was somehow completely aware of what was going on scared him. This was no ordinary dream, he shouldn't be able to know with such perfect clarity the identity of a woman who didn't exist and see his future self talking a romantic walk with her. Something was very wrong.

Mu ran up to them to try to ascertain just what the heck was happening, with his hand reaching out to Murrue's back, only to phase right through her, herself seeming to not care or notice him at all. When he got closer, Mu was able to hear what their conversation was about, though only the tale end of it.

"Murrue, ever since the war ended I've been a broken man. I had my entire past taken away from me, my identity, taken away from me. I had nothing left, I was a monster and I had no way to repent for all that I had done. Despite all of this, you stayed by my side, helping me along each step as I recovered, as I regained the humanity that I lost. You could have left at any time, hell I wanted you to leave at some points, you deserve so much better than a mess like me." The other Mu said.

"Mu, I would never leave you." She said softly.

"I know, and that makes me the luckiest guy in the world. I want continue being together with you for plenty of years to come. I want us to have children, raise a family, and grow old together. I don't care what path life takes me on, so long as I get to spend the rest of my days with you." The other Mu then got down to one knee, causing Murrue to get excited, with Mu pretty sure of what was to come next.

"Murrue Ramius, will you marry me?" Mu asked, pulling a box out of his pocket and presenting to her an engagement ring with a large diamond.

"YES!" She shouted excitedly, Mu then stood up and the two then engaged in a long passionate kiss. After they had seperated, the other Mu put the ring on Murrue's finger, signalling the start of their new life.

"Quite a happy scene huh? If only she knew that her Prince Charming was a fraud and that I, or I guess we, have been long dead for years at this point. She just said yes to a doopleganger with my will." Said a bitter voice behind Mu, one that sounded exactly like his own.

"What the hell?!" Mu exclaimed, turning around to find well...himself. Unlike the man who had just proposed to Murrue, this version of Mu was someone that looked like him as he was now. The main difference between the two was that Mu was currently wearing his Atlantic Space Force casual fatigues while his opposite was wearing his trademark purple pilot suit.

"Wait, you can see me?" Mu said in shock.

Pilot Mu gave a sad smile in response, "Yeah, I was the one who brought you here."

"What kind of a sick dream is this?" Mu questioned. In response he was met with a light slap across the face from pilot Mu. Despite the fact that it should have been a dream, Mu keenly felt the light sting from contact, one made harder with the gloves of the pilot suit.

"Look, I don't have a lot of time left, I wasted some getting you to witness that little spectacle so I'll be straight and get to the point. This isn't a dream, but this isn't reality either. Right now we are at a point outside the boundaries of space and time, I brought us here thanks to the huge cracks left by Zeon's entrance into our reality. What I'm showing to you right now is the future, a future where we die at the end of the war and the woman we love, Murrue Ramius, spends the rest of her life with that damned impostor standing right next to her." Pilot mu said, pointing with venom at the third version of himself who was hugging Murrue as the tide slowly surrounded them.

"That man right there is a botched clone that our father made to try to replace us, technically our half-brother. The only reason he got together with Murrue is because I was stupid enough to try to fight back and stay on Earth after I died. Since my body was dead my soul couldn't remain, so a small fraction of us, our will, found him and latched onto his body, making him believe that he was us and we somehow made it out of the war alive and we were brainwashed. He willingly killed his previous identity and transformed into a copy of us, well technically he is but mostly biologically, he still should have been his own person."

The revelation left Mu in a large state of shock, his mouth gaping wide open in shock at the fantastical exposition that had just been dumped onto him.

"Wait a minute! So you're saying that you are a dead version of me, from the future, who came back in time to warn me that the woman over there-"

"Murrue." Pilot Mu said, insisting that his past self call her that.

"Murrue, fell in love with a clone of us created by our father, who thinks he's us because a piece of our soul latched onto him?!"

"Pretty much. Glad I don't have to repeat things twice with you."

"Oh my God, I'm going insane." Mu said, dropping down onto the beach and slapping himself in a desperate attempt to wake up from whatever delusion that he was in. He was stopped by Pilot Mu, who crouched and held both of his arms.

"Oh no you don't. I'm _really_ not supposed to be here and I'm not going to waste what valuable time I have left watching you have a meltdown. Hang on a second." Pilot Mu then took his right hand and centered it on Mu's forehead, closing his eyes and concentrating. Mu was about to take it off, until he felt a sudden click, as if a bolt of lightning was striking him. Within a fraction of a second, Mu felt his perception increase exponentially with what he felt like his soul awakening. It was a sensation similar to what Mu had felt many times in his life, only on a much larger scale.

Pilot Mu let his hand go and opened his eyes. When he did so, Mu felt a sudden connection be opened to his counterpart, with him _knowing_ that every word that he said was the truth.

"You believe me now?" Pilot Mu said, with Mu slowly nodding his head. "Good."

"Wait a minute, if you're dead, does this mean that there's an afterlife?" Mu said in shock.

"Yep. Fortunately I was good enough that I traveled to the clouds and earned my wings. Normally I would have absolutely no power to do something this big, but an impossible opportunity came up and I grabbed it with both arms. Just hope the big guy is merciful when I get back." Pilot Mu said, as if confirming the existence of heaven was just the most natural thing in the world.

While Mu wanted to ask a million and one questions on just what the afterlife was like, he could feel the slight agitation from his counterpart and knew that he shouldn't waste time. "Wait, so if you're from the future, are you going to tell me about everything that leads up to your, my, _our_ death?" Mu asked.

Upon receiving the question, Mu could feel his future self suffer from a mixed feeling of nostalgia and sadness. "I wish I could, but sadly the same event that gave me the opportunity to come here has pretty much erased most of our likely futures. Most of what I went through has been completely erased and will not show up in the new timelines of this reality. You're going to walk thousands of different possible paths, and almost none of them will bare any resemblance to what led to my death. The existence of Zeon has made sure of that." Pilot Mu said.

It was the second time Mu heard that word, and his future self seemed to place great importance on it. "What's a Zeon?"

"You'll find out soon enough, but basically it's a new nation that comes from a reality much like ours yet completely different. Zeon's going to be very important to your future. Depending on what come's next, it'll either be a great ally or your worst enemy. Keep them close and be cautious of the Zabi family." Pilot Mu said.

"Is that what you came to warn me about?" Mu asked.

"Not exactly, but it is part of it." Mu then went silent, staying still for a couple of seconds before getting highly frustrated. "Dammit, I'm running out of time. Okay, here's the powerpoint version of what's important.

Like I said, most of what I went through doesn't matter, but there are still some common threads that matter. First off is Murrue Ramius. Find her, and when you meet her go after her and don't let go. She is the most important person we will ever meet and she was my entire world when I died. I had to wait a long time to meet her again, and when I did, she was all but a complete stranger to me. No matter where the hell this war goes to, unless the fate of humanity is at stake, she is the most important. Do. Not. Screw this up.

Second is Mr. Fraud, a guy who guys by the name Neo Roanoke. I can't explain too much, but like I said, he's a clone Dad tried to replace us with. You probably won't find him on your own, just take the time to look into what Dad was doing before he died. The trail will either lead you to him or you'll cross paths sooner or later. He's not a definite enemy, just deal with him one way or the other.

Speaking of, Dad also has a bunch of clones of himself running around. The most important is Rau Le Creuscet. In addition to protecting Murrue, kill Rau at all costs. As long as that demon breathes, humanity is a couple steps closer to killing itself. The others are relatively harmless. When you meet Rau in battle, do everything you can to end his life.

With Zeon's existence, your inherent powers shall soar to new heights and you shall gain new abilities. You are a Newtype, remember that and embrace it strongly. Your soul has great potential and with luck and training you may be able to fulfill it. Find others like us and help them survive and thrive. We made the jump too early and the future is going to be wild and uncertain. Humanity shall either embrace or reject its potential, help them embrace it.

Lastly, this war you're fighting in is going to be bigger than you could possibly think it is. This conflict is going to help determine the path humanity walks upon, whether we evolve or bring an apocalypse on ourselves. It's far from black and white and you're going to find enemies and friends on both sides. Don't restrict yourself with nations or ideology, fight for what you believe is right. Stick on the best path and the future gets a little bit brighter.

Pilot Mu then stood up, with Mu mirroring him. "Did you get all of that?"

Mu slowly nodded, "I think so, but it doesn't make a lot of sense."

Pilot Mu smiled to him sadly, "You'll understand one way or another. I wish I could stay longer, but this is a miracle enough as it is and I'll take what I can get. Just remember what I said and you'll be okay.

Pilot Mu then put both his hands and laid on Mu's shoulders. "Good luck." He simply said, then pushing Mu, causing him to fall backwards into what felt like an eternal void.

With a heavy gasp, Mu awoke with cold sweats and found himself not on that tropical island, but in what appeared to be a medical ward filled with Atlantean doctors, lying in a single bed with the rest of the room being filled with unconscious members of his squad.

As the doctors quickly moved to check in on him. Mu La Flaga sat in a daze. He wanted to believe that what he just witnessed was some sort of fever dream, yet he felt deep down that every second was real. So if it was real, just where did Mu go from here?  
**  
April 1st, 70 C.E. 5:00 P.M Orb Standard Time. Kazuto Keitamura Memorial Hospital. Yalathaf. Orb Union. Uzumi Nara Attha POV**

Of all the decisions that he had made within his long life, the one that Uzumi Nara Athha would never regret was his decision to adopt Cagali, his beloved daughter and the shining sun within his life.

With his younger brother Homura's aversion to children and Uzumi's asexual orientation making the possibility of producing an heir with a spouse unlikely, Uzumi had to adopt in order to make sure that the Attha name would live on after his death. When the Yamatos had come to him seeking asylum after the death of Ulen Hibiki, they had offered Cagali to him as a way to keep the twins safe through separation. To honor his old friend Ulen, Uzumi had agreed to do so, granting House Athha not only an heir, but more importantly a new family member who had brought color to Uzumi's once dull life.

Sure Cagali may not have been the perfect heir with her disdain for many of the political traditions of Orb and aversion to her power and position as princess, but none of that mattered when Uzumi looked upon his daughter and saw the boundless energy, ferocious spirit, and creativity that she embodied. For Cagali, the sky was the limit and anything she set her hearts to she would accomplish, a shining beacon of optimism that was representative of the Orb youth that Uzumi wished to guide into the future. It was and still is a wonderful journey for Uzumi to watch her grow into an amazing young woman. Uzumi knew that given time, Cagali's immense love towards her nation would help her mature to become a great leader, one who would not only fill Uzumi's shoes after he left but leave a greater impact than he ever could.

Uzumi loved being Cagali's father, and he wouldn't give it up for the entire world.

It was because of this great love, that Uzumi was currently in a state of great grief and turmoil over the current state that Cagali was in. He could do nothing but watch helplessly at her bedside as Cagali was comatose, completely unresponsive to the greater world.

While Cagali may not have had the enhanced genes of her twin, she had always been a healthy child who had persevered through the S2 epidemic and never had any major health scares beyond the minor cold or flu once a year. Yet with absolutely no warning while she and Uzumi were having lunch, Cagali collapsed from the table and began to shake in a manner akin to the seizure, violently screeching in pain.

It was not only this terrifying event that scared Uzumi, but the words that Cagali was saying before she had lost consciousness.

_"Kira! Where are you?"_

She had been hollering for this Kira, begging for him to reveal herself to her as she was searching for him, even though for a great amount of time it was only her and Uzumi in the dining room. This set off an endless number of questions within Uzumi's mind. Was Kira some important person who was close to her? While Cagali did not reveal every aspect of her life to Uzumi, she was open to Uzumi most of the time and Kisaka would always speak to him directly of any important developments. To his knowledge, there was no Kira among her personal relations.

This could only mean her twin brother, but how could she have possibly known about him? The last time he had seen Haruma and Caridad Yamato, they made it very clear that they wanted Uzumi to stay out of their lives, a wish he had always respected outside of keeping tabs on them from a distance to make sure that Blue Cosmos was nowhere near targeting young Kira. Right now they were currently living happy lives in Heliopolis. Cagali had never been to space and she had no desire to travel to Orb's sole space colony. How could she have possibly come into contact with Kira without his knowledge?

_'I'll never know the answer until she wakes up.'_ Uzumi thought sadly. Even if she did make contact with Kira, Uzumi would not get mad with her over the affair. All he wanted was his shining light to wake up once more.

Uzumi's watch over Cagali was interrupted when he felt a soft hand touch his right shoulder. Uzumi turned to see his younger brother Homura hovering over him.

"Uzu, there is a Lieutenant Commander from Naval Intelligence who is desperate to see you. I tried to kick him out, but he was very adamant and said the only way for him to leave was by force. Says that it's a matter of national security."

Hearing about the intelligence officer turned Uzumi's somber mood to great anger. There were many times in the past fourteen years where time that he had wanted to spend with Cagali was cut short by his duty as an Athha and Chief Representative. Now, when his daughter was in a coma from who knows what, they dared to take him away from her!

With a great huff, his face becoming red, Uzumi marched on out of the private room, promising to return to his daughter as soon as possible.

Exiting, Uzumi found a lanky individual in the grey uniform of ONI. At first the officer appeared to be relieved upon seeing Uzumi, only for his face to warp into fear when observing the mood of the Chief Representative.

"Lord Uzumi! I-"

"YOU!" Uzumi shouted, marching up to the man and violating his personal space by getting mere centimeters from his face, his arm pushing him the man to the wall. "Hours ago I just watched my daughter collapse in front of my eyes, and now she's in a coma! She could not wake up for days, weeks, months, _years_! I don't even know if she'll survive by the end of the day BECAUSE THE DOCTORS DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH HER! Yet when I'm trying to be in the company of my daughter, **YOU DARE** to wrestle me away for most likely a trivial concern such as East Asia or the Federation's fleet skirting our borders!

Unless someone is about to launch an invasion of Orb, I will not leave by my daughter's side, DO YOU HEAR ME?! If you do not leave this building within the next five minutes, I shall have you arrested for treason in defying the Chief Executive. Do you-"

"One of our intersphere traders had been taken hostage by a rogue force belonging to what appears to be a space nation which popped out of nowhere, two fleets along with military asteroids have just been detected in L4 and L5. Also right now ZAFT and the Alliance are engaging in the largest battle of the war so far but we have no idea how it relates to the appearance of these stealth fleets or colonies that are parked on the far side of the moon." The officer rapidly blurted out in the hopes of calming down the Chief Representative and to get him to come with him.

Processing the information that he just heard, Uzumi's face transformed from fury to confusion.

"A space nation that popped out of nowhere? Stealth fleets?" Uzumi questioned, though he looked around afterwords to make sure he hadn't bleeped state secrets to any civilians passing by. Fortunately the hall was absent aside from Uzumi, his brother, and the officer; mainly due to Cagali being interred in a private wing of the hospital reserved for the Great Houses and other national/foreign VIP's.

"Lord Uzumi, I completely sympathize with you in your current situation, and if it were anything else, I would happily leave and allow you to stay by Lady Cagali's side. However, the recent events that ONI has just picked up in the last few hours is something that we have never seen and we cannot possibly prepare for. It's bad enough that Lady Cagali fell victim to the event, but now we have some complete unknown on the-"

"Wait just a minute!" Uzumi barked, halting the officer mid-sentence. "What do you mean my daughter has fallen victim to an event? She just had a seizure. Did someone try to assassinate her?!" Uzumi asked in panic, completely forgetting all sense of decorum.

_'That doesn't make any sense, if someone or some group tried to kill Cagali, why haven't Homura and I been evacuated. Why her and not us?'_ Uzumi thought to himself.

"Wait...Lord Uzumi, are you completely unaware of what's happening within across the planet?" The officer said, disbelief etched across his face.

"Across the Planet? No, I've been by Cagali's side this whole time and I haven't left other than to let the doctors tend to her. What's going on, an S3 outbreak?" Uzumi asked, an absolute nightmare for the Chief Representative. The S2 epidemic was one of Orb's darkest hours, a third strain after less than twenty years would tear the nation apart.

"No it's...no one's dying right now from it per say, but tens of millions of people have suddenly collapsed across the world. I thought...I beg your forgiveness Lord Uzumi, but it appears that one of my superiors has messed up badly and has left you in the dark, either intentionally or through neglect. Regardless, this is something that needs your situation right now my Lord. We must withdraw to the command center so you can organize a response to all that's been going on. I'll fill you in on the way."

Uzumi looked back towards the suite where Cagali was staying at, looking at her seemingly lifeless body, the daughter he had loved dearly for the past fifteen years at death's door. Uzumi wanted to do nothing more than to stay at her side and completely block out the world until she recovered. However, as Chief Representative it was his duty to not only see to the welfare of his citizens, but to have Orb act as a beacon to guide the world on the path to peace, something he has sadly failed in for the past decade.

He knew what he wanted to do, but it needed to come second to what he _had_ to do.

Uzumi looked towards Homura, his younger brother addressing what was on his mind. "You go brother, I'll stay here until she wakes up. I now Cagali will understand and she won't blame you all. I'll call if anything of her condition changes."

Uzumi walked to his brother and gave him a light hug. "Thank you." It was a great shame to Uzumi that Homura had never wanted to raise children. He had always been such a good uncle to Cagali and Uzumi was sure that Homura and his brother-in law would've made wonderful fathers.

Uzumi then walked towards the officer. "I apologize for my lack of behavior. Lieutenant Commander-"

"Kato, my Lord. It's quite alright, I have a daughter myself and if I were in your shoes I would have most likely reacted in a similar manner. However, I would like for us to travel to the Command Center as soon as possible."

"Lets." Uzumi agreed, his Royal Guard soon falling in to escort the two out of the hospital.

When they exited the hospital, Uzumi began to realize what exactly Kato meant by an event as he saw the building be swarmed by thousands of people, each hall that he traveled through being cramped by those who were worried for their loved ones. Some tried to talk to Uzumi, asking him if he had any answers for what was happening. All he could say in reply was to have faith in their Doctors and they were doing everything they could to respond, even though he had no idea of what exactly was happening.

On the way Uzumi was debriefed of what was occurring around the Earth sphere. How at 1100 hours, tens of millions of people across the entire world, tens of thousands within Orb, were struck by some strange phenomena that had them screaming in pain, then later collapsing.

Kato had shown him footage on his laptop of how the _Raifuku Maru_ was seized by this _Brunswick_, a ship that appeared to have some relation to hundreds of closed type colonies within L2. The dialogue in particular was puzzling to Uzumi. The Captain of the Brunswick used so many jargon and terms that were alien yet he seemed to absolutely believe in them. Side 7? Principality? His absolute denial of the existence of Heliopolis or Fuzan Shipping. There was also mention of a bio attack, which if Uzumi had to guess most likely was the same event that occurred across Earth. Yet how could an outbreak occur both in Earth and in space at the exact precise second?

That was another odd thing, the fact that hundreds of colonies now existed in L2. While it sadly wouldn't surprise Uzumi for him to find out of the Earth Alliance members having secret facilities on the far side, they could not possibly construct hundreds of colonies then launch them simultaneously. Even if all the colonies were barren on the inside, it would cause any nation to head towards bankruptcy. So if these colonies were populated, who could they have belonged to?

There was also the fleets in L4 and L5. Both pointed to ownership of either East Asia or PLANT, so then who was behind all of this? Most importantly, where these mystery colonies and fleets connected to this global pandemic?

Once they arrived at the command center, Kato and Uzumi entered at a rather brisk pace. After a small journey, most of the time spent on security, Uzumi entered into the Noble Bunker, a facility both to lead Orb from and to shelter the five Great Houses in the event of a nuclear strike in the worst case scenario.

When Uzumi entered, he was saluted by a collection of Orb's highest ranking officers in the Self-Defense Force, a salute that Uzumi returned. It seemed that Uzumi was not the first noble to arrive however as Shigeru Fuzan was present, something that made sense considering the hostage situation involved a ship owned by the man, yet it was unsettling how he had arrived before Uzumi.

Uzumi approached his bald peer, the man keeping up his usual friendly poker face, even in such a time of crisis. Among the Five Great Heads, Shigeru had always been a bit of a wildcard in terms of ideology. Whenever there was a split he would usually be seen as the tiebreaker and manipulate any outcome to his favor. There had been several times where he had allied with Uzumi, and several times where he had went against Uzumi. He was neither friend nor foe, rather a colleague. It was something that made Uzumi rather uncomfortable in dealing with him rather than the likes of Unato, a man whose goals while conflicting with Uzumi's, were clear for the world to see.

"Shigeru, I hope I haven't kept you waiting long." Uzumi said warmly, reaching out for a handshake which the Fuzan patriarch returned. It was a rather diplomatic way of saying, "How long were you here before me?"

"Don't worry Uzumi, I only just got here ten minutes ago. I know it's not my place to be involved in these kinds of situation, this belongs more to you and Koto, but it's my ship that has been taken hostage by...whoever these people are, and I'd like to see my people returned home safely. I suspect you'll have to call a meeting of the Council soon anyways, what with this plague ravaging the Earth sphere. To think that even Heliopolis would be struck." Shigeru said.

"Let's not act too rashly and start handing out labels like plagues just yet. This is far too extraordinary for a natural or engineered event, I would rather we gather all the facts first than cause a panic." Uzumi said, Shigeru nodding in agreement.

The two nobles then headed to the Security Council Chambers, where the heads of Orb's Self-Defense Force gathered to meet their lords. While Orb's military was undoubtedly the weakest of all the Cosmic Era nations (barring South America who chose pacifism and let their nation's defense be run by the Atlantic Federation), what they lacked up for in numbers they made up in high quality, the average Orb officer being the equal of an Atlantic or Eurasian. While Orb's leadership was well aware that they would lose in an outright war, their objective was to bloody any nation that dared to attack it so hard that they would be forced to sue for peace before a proper escalation could occur.

It was a doctrine that might soon be put to the test in the worst case scenario with these unknowns.

"Have these people sent us any demands for the Raifuku Maru?" Uzumi asked.

The head of Orb's Space Self-Defense Force, Rear Admiral Akiyama Nanba, was the first to speak. "At this current time, we have not received any demands. In fact, it appears that this unknown force has not transmitted anything beyond the far side of the moon. While we are detecting a wide arrange of communications near equal to the daily average within East Asia, they are almost exclusively within L2, the far side, or between the two. They are even ignoring the Lunar colonies on the near side."

"Is there not any way to contact them?" Uzumi asked.

Admiral Nanba let out a soft sigh. "The problem with that Lord Uzumi is that we don't know _who_ to contact. The scans the Raifuku Maru sent us reveal _hundreds_ of space colonies within L2, far outnumbering the total number of colonies throughout the rest of the greater Earth sphere. They could all belong to some collective organization or nation, or they could belong to different polities and one colony we contact could have no affiliation with this _Brunswick_.

"What about the fleets that appeared in L4 and L5. They appear to have the same class of ships of this Brunswick. If we contact them then they could transmit it to their common leadership." Shigeru offered.

"While the idea is sound my Lord, we once again run into the problem of if they are even aligned together. The Atlantic Federation and South Africa use much of the same arsenal with South Africa's entire Space Force purchased from the Federation. Much of the EU's old hardware is Atlantean made while Scandinavia has large stocks of weaponry that were built in Eurasia. The same principles could apply here." Admiral Nanba said.

"I believe it's time that we address the elephant in the room. We all know that it's impossible for the Alliance or ZAFT to have created these colonies and grand fleets. The Alliance would be bankrupted, even in a joint effort, and ZAFT is far too impoverished to construct even a portion of what we had seen. So we know that this can't be the works of any Earth nation, it's far too distant for Mars, then _what_ exactly are we dealing with?" Admiral Shinzo Shigeyoshi, the head of the Orb Navy and highest ranking officer of the Self-Defense Forces said.

With the Admirals words came the silent proclamation in the room, that somehow a nation just popped out of existence and landed on the doorstep of the moon.

_'This reminds me too much of some cliche Isekai Homura and I watched as children.'_ Uzumi thought, holding back a laugh at the ridiculousness of the thought. Yet what other possibilities could there be?

The room remained silent for a while until Shigeru broke the ice. "Perhaps it is a nation from another world." He said, receiving bewildered looks from those present.

"What? In the transcript of the dialogue with the Brunswick, they utterly refused to recognize the existence of Heliopolis and my company, it's like denying that the Earth is round or that Coordinators are real. Not only that, but they kept on throwing foreign words like the Principality or Side 7. Why would non-state actors or any other nation act like reality is different when they were confronting a freighter. We all know it is impossible to have these fleets and colonies be constructed in the Earth sphere, and they didn't spontaneously warp from Mars unless the Martians have developed FTL, so what other possibilities are there?" Shigeru deduced, having one of the few logical, yet impossible explanations present.

"Well, with a name like Captain Edgar Cruz of the _Brunswic_k, we at least know they are human and not invaders from outside the system." Uzumi lightly joked, alleviating some tension with a small round of laughter in the room. "We can sit here and question just who these people are all day, but it doesn't change the fact that we have Orb citizens who are being held hostage from a foreign power and they need to be released today. We must open all avenues of communication and negotiate for a release of the ship and its crew. I shall record a message asking for the opening of negotiations and the release of the ship's crew, and we shall transmit it to the two asteroids."

Admiral Nanba was about to retort, only for Uzumi to release his hand. "Yes I know they might not be in league with those responsible, but their appearance occurred at the same time as the L2 colonies, so they are connected in some way and even if they are innocent, then we can at least open up dialogue with some of the unknowns and find out just who these people are. At the same time, Admiral Nanba, I would request for a flotilla of Izumos to be organized to be sent to L2 and act as a diplomatic force for direct negotiations."

"But Lord Uzumi, we can't possibly engage in a direct conflict over just one ship, no offense Lord Shigeru. Discounting the asteroid fleets, there are hundreds of warships in L2 that must be in league with the Brunswick, to confront them would be suicide." Admiral Shigeyoshi protested.

Uzumi sent the Admiral a minor glare, causing him to slightly slump in his seat. "While Orb may not attack another nation, we will not allow another to attack us. I have no wish to engage in warfare and will use any and all means to prevent such a travesty from occurring. My wish is to simply have the Izumos act as a small show of force to have our demands be taken seriously and for us to be treated as equals. If this group of unknowns truly are visitors from...somewhere, then they will not have any knowledge of our lack of overwhelming raw power and assume that this flotilla is a small fraction of a greater force."

Hearing his Chief Representative's reasons, Shigeyoshi bowed his head slightly in respect, "Forgive me my Lord for assuming the worst, I am simply anxious due to how this is the biggest crisis our nation has faced since our formation. I don't think anyone could've prepared for a situation such as the one we are facing."

Uzumi nodded his head in understanding, "It is quite alright. The appearance of these colonies is quite bizarre, though we shall not let the size of this unknown party deter us and keep our hands in the sand. We have kept the Pacific powers at bay for decades, this is merely the same concept though only bigger and in space." Uzumi said.

Shigeru turned to Uzumi, "While I applaud your wisdom Chief Representative, this is no mere skirting of territorial boundaries where East Asia travels along our waters and we tell them to back off. We must involve the Alliance so that in the worst case scenario they may intercede on our behalf and protect us against the unknowns." Uzumi began to protest but Shigeru cut him off, "Yes, it would be a violation of our principles of neutrality, but we simply do not have either the hard or soft power to handle something of this magnitude in space, where our only presence is a space station and a colony on the other side of the Earth sphere. As disgusting as it is, falling into the debt of the Alliance is a small price to pay if we are to truly prevent war being inflicted upon our people."

Uzumi let out a soft sigh. As much as he hated it, Shigeru had a point. A trade dispute he could manage, but one of Orb's ships being taken hostage by a grand armada that appeared out of thin air may be too much for the great "Lion of Orb". As disgusting as it would be to be in further debt to aggressive imperialists after the immense financial costs of Heliopolis and Ame-no-Mihashira, the humiliation was a far better price to bear than the blood of his citizens.

"I will consider it, but only if our current avenues of diplomacy fail. Now-"

Before Uzumi could continue, a tan female ONI commander pushed the door of the council chambers open and burst into the room.

"Commander, just what do you think you are doing interrupting a-"Admiral Nanba began.

"Sirs, my Lords. I have grave news to report. Western Europe, it's gone dark."

**April 1st, 70 C.E. 2:00 A.M. North American Eastern Standard. Prince William Medical Center. Mannassas, Virginia. Atlantic Federation. George Allster POV**

When Flay had fallen into unconsciousness from a sudden and violent seizure, George Allster felt as if the world was ending right before him. After losing his wife to the S2 Outbreak, Flay was left without a mother and George as all that she had left to rely upon and guide her into the world as a young child. He may not have been the best father, and there were several times where he was unable to be there for his daughters due to the duty he had done towards his nation, but George had always done his best to be the father that Flay had deserved. His only child was the center of his world, the one thing that kept him going every day to help try to build a better world for her to grow up in. Yet, right before his eyes, it appeared that she was on her way to death's door.

When the ambulance came and they went to the hospital, George stayed by her side every second until they came to the emergency room, with himself almost attempting to fight the doctors and nurses to let him be in the same room while they worked on her. The hour that she had been under examination had been the second worst of George's life, the first being the last moments of his wife Emilia while she was on her deathbed. When he had received word that Flay was in stable condition and was nowhere near close to death, George was ecstatic. He felt as if two decades of his life was returned to him and he thanked God that his little angel would not be taken away so soon.

Four and a half hours after Flay had collapsed she had awaken on her hospital bed, a miracle to George as he had feared that she could remain comatose for weeks or months. His jubilation did not last long as upon seeing her father, Flay entered a bout of great hysteria and clung onto George greatly, pleading for him to stay at her side and once more repeatedly asking that he wouldn't die.

_'Why would she think I would die, she was the one who collapsed not me?'_ George questioned in great fear. While he may not have been the most healthy individual and could certainly stand to lower his cholesterol and blood pressure, he was far from the picture of ill health and could easily live a couple more decades. Unless someone were to strike him down right now there were no chances for George to die.

After George had repeatedly assured his daughter that he would stay by her side and most importantly, not die, Flay's hysteria was lowered, though it was replaced by a general mood of sadness wit her collapsing into a fit of tears before becoming somber and quiet, refusing to do anything else other than to make sure he was in her sight at all times. When George had attempted to briefly take a trip to the restroom, Flay had freaked out and acted like he was abandoning her on the side of the road. It took him several minutes to get her to calm down, while he was forced to do his business as fast as he could to return to her.

_'What could cause her to act like this?'_ George wondered. One second his daughter was a normal girl who was struggling with studying for her exams, the next she entered into a frenzy over his well being.

In this situation, George stayed by his side for the next near three hours, something that calmed Flay greatly, though not entirely.

George knew that he was neglecting his duties at the State Department, him not bothering much of an explanation besides a short phone call and ignoring several calls and texts. However, this was his daughter's life on the line and it was far more important than the politics of Washington. If the Department forced him to pick his job over his daughter, he would choose Flay and resign, to hell with them!

The calm moment between father and daughter was interrupted by the intrusion of a middle aged Hispanic doctor, a Doctor Juarez, who was one of the ones who attended to Flay. "Secretary Allster, I don't really have an easy way of saying this so I'll be blunt. With your daughter's current condition being stable, we need both you and her to check out from the hospital at once." He said.

The announcement sent George into a fury, causing him to bolt from his chair next to Flay's bed and rush to meet Juarez face to face, though he did notice Flay desperately trying to reach out to him. "What the hell do you mean we have to leave?! My daughter just collapsed hours ago from a seizure and you're kicking us out! What kind of a quack are you?! I'll have you know that I have friends in Health and Human Services and I can and will make sure that your license is revoked and you'll never step foot in a hospital ever again!" George yelled, not giving a damn about the scene that he was causing around him or how he just openly threatened to use corruption to ruin a Doctor's life.

To the Juarez's credit, he was barely unphased by the threat, an act most likely created by years of experience in dealing with bad patients. "Secretary Allster, I am well aware of your influence and connections. I have absolutely no wish to do this and if I could I would have Flay be kept under observation for the next 24 hours. However, at this point in time Flay shows no physical ailments and as such I cannot keep her here when the hospital is about to reach max capacity."

"Max capacity, what do you mean?! What was there some kind of terror attack or shooting? Even then you should have more than enough resources to allow my daughter to stay." George countered.

"Have you watched the news?" Juarez asked.

"No, I've devoted all my attention to my daughter." George said, confused on why he would need to see the news.

"I'll be the first to let you know then that your daughter is not the only victim of a suddenly violent seizure despite no past history. Around the same time as her event, tens of millions of people across the world were hit with similar symptoms. Right now there are countless cases in the Washington area and we are forced to accommodate not only local victims, but Washington is sending us their patients as their hospitals are already full."

"Tens of millions! My God, is it an S3-"

"DO NOT finish that sentence!" The doctor said, raising his volume for the first time, despite George's earlier threats. "At this moment we have no idea just what the hell we are facing, and we cannot have a panic at a time like this. There are already riots in most of the major metropolitan areas. A couple of states are even mobilizing the National Guard." Juarez informed, making George greatly regret ignoring his calls and texts from work.

"Look, if Flay experiences any sort of lapse in health, come back immediately. Until then, we cannot keep her here while we have hundreds of comatose patients that we need to attend to. Make sure she has plenty of rest and have her condition checked upon every hour. Once this clears up, have her come in for a checkup. Until then, our hands are tied." Juarez explained.

George still wanted to protest, until he felt his suit be tugged upon, causing him to look at his daughter's worried face. "Please daddy, just do what he says and let's just go. I'm fine, other people should be treated before me." Flay requested.

Not being able to say no to his daughter as he was multiple times before, George relented. "Fine. Where do I sign her out?"

Shortly after George went through the process of checking her out while Flay quickly changed into her old clothes. On their way out, Flay requested to stopped by the hospital's cafeteria to get some small snacks from the vending machines as neither Allster had eaten for the past several hours. Flay got a small cup of yogurt, while George had bought a Danish.

Both Allsters made their way to a small garden in the center of the hospital to eat their food in peace. On the way George began to notice just how packed the hospital was, while glances at the news on television had confirmed the Doctor's words, something that George also saw on his phone.

While the word was on fire, George refused to deal with it for now until he made sure that his daughter arrived home safe and sound, although he wondered just how they would get home with the roads most likely being clogged up by the panic. The father and daughter ate their respective meals in silence, neither knowing how to start a conversation. After they were done, silence reigned for a couple of minutes, then George asked Flay the one thing that had been eating at his mind for the past several hours.

"Flay, when you collapsed, the last thing you said was repeatedly asking me not to die. When you woke up, that was also the first thing that you said. Why do you think that I would die?" George asked.

Upon hearing the question, Flay wrapped her father in a tight hug. Her eyes began to drain tears once more which slowly traveled onto George's jacket.

"Daddy, when I fell down, I...I saw some things." Flay said cryptically, unsure herself of just what exactly she went through, yet knowing deep down that it was all true.

"You saw things? What do you mean, like a vision?" George said as a light joke, though his mood turned somber when he noticed that Flay nodded her head slightly, deeply scaring him.

"I know it sounds stupid, but it _felt_ real, it **was **real. I was in space, in some sort of tropical colony."

"Tropical colony, you mean Heliopolis?" George asked. That was the only space colony to his knowledge that had its interior based on the tropics.

"I don't know, but probably." Flay responded. "I was living life there, on my own, and a bunch of mobile suits came and attacked the colony. They were probably, no, they were ZAFT." Flay said.

Her statement only caused George's confusion to rise to greater lengths. Orb was one of the staunchest defenders of the PLANTs, especially with two of their five Great Houses being filled with Coordinators. There was absolutely no way that ZAFT would attack the neutral colony of Heliopolis, no matter what the rhetoric of Blue Cosmos said about them. Outside of the stupidity of attacking one of their few remaining friends on Earth, there was absolutely no strategic benefit to attacking a colony on the other side of the Earth sphere. Orb had nothing of value besides financial capitol.

"I got away from the colony and then I got onto a warship. I don't know what happened there, but I got onto the bridge of the ship and I had Lacus Clyne at my side as a hostage." Flay said, as if holding the daughter of Siegel Clyne at gunpoint was the most normal thing in the world.

"Lacus Clyne?" George asked in disbelief. The idea that his angel would ever take anyone hostage was ludicrous enough, but the Songstress of the PLANTs? Flay was probably just listening to one of her CD's and probably had a bad dream, that was all.

Yet George was once again met with a nod from his daughter as if it were the truth. "We were on the bridge, and I saw ZAFT forces attacking a cruiser that you were on. I said that if they fired on you, I would kill Lacus. But...they still fired on you. A beam hit your ship, I saw you in the hangar, you were trying to leave and it burned you daddy, there wasn't anything left. I watched you die, I felt you die. I-" Before Flay could continue, without warning, she broke down into a loud horrified scream. Hollering high to the heavens, Flay fell down onto the ground and sobbed uncontrollably.

Fearing the worst, George held onto his daughter desperately. "FLAY!" He shouted.

"Daddy, I can hear them screaming, I can hear them all screaming! People are dying, it's terrible!" Flay whined greatly, despite the fact that the outside park was very quiet with no noise besides Flay's own yells.

"Whose screaming Flay? It's just you and me." George asked, trying desperately to calm down his daughter.

"It's not here, it's not anywhere near here, but it's going to spread. I don't know what's going on, I can just feel them dying, all of them." Flay said crying uncontrollably. George attempted to lift her up, to rush her back to the doctors, but Flay refused to have him move her.

"No, I'm okay. It doesn't hurt like before, i just hear the screaming. Just please stay with me daddy."

"But-"

"Please!" Flay begged. Against his better judgement, George stayed, his daughter still continuing to release a steady stream of tears and holding onto him tight and he did his best to calm her down. After a long period of time had passed, Flay spoke once more.

"It's not gone, not completely, but they're not as loud as they used to be." She said cryptically, George still unsure of just what was going on.

"Flay, I don't understand, what's happening to you?" Before she could answer, two men in black burst into the park, spotting the father and daughter with one speaking into his radio upon visual confirmation.

"Eagle Eye, we have made contact with Big Bull, moving for extraction." The one on the right said, his taller partner on the left then stepping forward.

"Secretary Allster, I'm Agent Hepner of the Secret Service. President McCarthy has just declared Hibernation. Since Secretary Hood is in Eurasia, we must escort you to Air Force One according to protocol." Hepner said.

Upon hearing the words George froze. Hibernation was the code word used for a contingency scenario where the President had to flee to a secure black site in the event of an imminent nuclear strike. George only knew of the plan due to the Secretary of State necessitating to be evacuated as part of the Security Council, and in Hibernation he would fill that role if his boss Secretary Hood was unable to join the President.

"Oh my God. ZAFT launched nukes on the planet?" George asked in horror. He knew that after Junius Seven, even with the "Stalwart Shield" Siegel Clyne in charge that eventually ZAFT would launch some sort of retaliation. But he had thought that the attempted drop on Victoria was such an operation, not for them to launch a nuclear strike on Earth!

"We don't know at this time, but about fifty minutes ago we lost contact with the British Isles and Western Europe, they've gone completely dark. Not to mention satellites have picked up imagery of the battle in orbit, let's just say it's going extremely bad for us.

George looked to his daughter, wondering if her pain was somehow connected to the event as they occurred roughly at the same time. She cried about people dying, was this what she was referring to?

"I'll go, but my daughter's coming with me." George demanded.

"Fine." Hepner said. "Eagle Eye, we have a plus one with Big Bull, proceeding to extraction. "Secretary, if we don't reach Air Force One soon they can and will leave without us."

Nodding in understanding, George gently pulled his daughter up. "Come on Flay, we have to go." Silently giving her acceptance, Flay got up and clinged tightly to George's arm as the two agents escorted them out of the hospital and into a small convoy of SUV's where they made their way to Air Force One.

This was how George spent the first hours of the April Fool's crisis, the spiraling series of events in space pushing him to a fate completely alien to his original death.  
**  
April 1st, 70 C.E. 2:30 A.M. North American Eastern Standard. New York City, New York. Atlantic Federation. Murata Azrael POV**

In his private penthouse in the center of the city, Murata Azrael lay collapsed on the floor of living room, his blonde hair in strewn about in a mess, fragile objects such as vases or glasses of wine broken and spread across the floor, while a dead cellphone laid centimeters from his right hand.

In a single moment, life flooded back into Azrael, the businessman and Natural supremacist slowly regaining consciousness, waking up in a great daze while his head felt like it was on fire.

"Uuugh. What happened?" Azrael questioned to himself, standing up on his legs and finding his suite a great mess.

Memories were starting to come back to Azrael of what had happened. He was in the middle of a business call with the Pentagon, primarily focusing on the mass production of the Moebius Zero which so far had proved to be a great success thanks to the efforts of Zero Squadron. Azrael was about to close the deal, when all of a sudden he fell into a great amount of pain and agony, tearing apart his apartment as he struggled with his mind tearing itself apart.

Azrael also saw images flashing before his eyes during that time. These were not flashbacks to what happened before in his life, but of events that had not taken place yet. These were mostly concerning with what appeared to be a dystopian version of the war with ZAFT marching across the Earth unopposed while Azrael desperately tried to rally the resources of Blue Cosmos and LOGOS to protect the planet from those horrid fiends. He saw himself leading some sort of amphibious invasion, observing three mobile powerful mobile suits wreak death and destruction at his bidding, and himself going to space and leading the charge against the PLANTs.

Azrael smiled to himself as he remembered with vivid clarity the last thing he saw, himself launching the Alliance's nuclear arsenal against the PLANTs with those ugly constructs destined to be blown away. If he didn't know any better, he'd say those hallucinations were a sweet dream.

Azrael grabbed his phone to check and see if anyone called him, when the second he grabbed it, Azrael felt the pain returning once more. While it was nowhere near as intense as the first time, he could still clearly feel it. It was of a different quality though. The first time it felt as if someone had struck Azrael with a sludgehammer to the brain. Here, it felt as if thousands of fire ants were launching an attack against him, small burning sensations spreading throughout his body.

Azrael also began to hear voices. These were not individuals who resided in a city, but felt like he was hearing millions of men and women across all ages screech out in pain and agony. These screams were not direct, rather they appeared to be distant echoes. Still, the combination of all of these voices turned into one massive cry for help, a large volume of sheer terror despite the city below running its usual life and Azrael's personal environment consisting of only himself.

"Where are these voices coming from?!" Yelled Azrael to the heavens, pleading for an end to the madness, yet nothing coming. This continued for several more minutes, Azrael once more lying on the ground, swaying back and forward in a desperate attempt to remain calm in fear of losing his sanity.

After a while, the voices gradually subsided and lowered down in volume. They did not disappear completely, as Azrael could still hear various cries, but they became more distant, like soft whispers in the wind. Ever present, though not as invasive as they once were.

For all of his life, Murata Azrael lived in inferiority, always fearful of the superhuman who he saw as waging a war to lead mankind to their extinction, to be replaced with monsters of science that wore the skin of humanity yet had no souls. Azrael dedicated his life towards one mission and purpose, to protect the Naturals and wipe out the Coordinators who sought to mold the world in their image. Despite all of this, an intense feeling of jealousy had always existed with the man. A question of "Why was I not born perfect?", a desire to have the same abilities as those he sought to destroy.

On April 1st, 70 CE, Murata Azrael would finally obtain his wish. Through a miracle that saw a nation be transported across space and time, Azrael would fulfill his spiritual potential and reach the next stage of human evolution. Murata Azrael became a Newtype.

**A/N: First off we have Mu's POV and his Newtype vision, which is where I'll admittedly be taking a lot of creative liberties in how Destiny came to be. I know a good number of you are going to be confused on the exposition given by future Mu, but let's just say that what Mu saw was a canon scene from years after Destiny and that Neo Roanoke in Cosmic Crusade is a different person from Mu La Flaga. Trust me when I say that I'm going to majorly expand on this plot point in the future and it will be explained in great detail. Let's just say that while many Gundams have Char Clones, Cosmic Crusade has a **_**Full Frontal Clone**_**.**

**Next we have Uzumi, with him trying to respond to Cagali's Newtype awakening with what he assumes to be a life or death situation, as well as trying to find out just who Zeon is and why they took the Raifuku Maru. This will be dealt with directly in the next chapter, but let's just say that Orb is on a faster track than ZAFT and the Alliance in initiating first contact.**

**Also, I took some somewhat major creative liberties by making Uzumi asexual and Homura being uninterested in fathering or adopting children as a way to explain why Cagali literally has no family besides Kira, her father, and adopted uncle. It always seemed odd to me why Cagali was the last Athha and while I could give her OC cousins, doing so fundamentally breaks a lot of Seed and Destiny's plot that I can't excuse even with a large amount of handwaving. Hope this explanation makes sense and feel free to give criticism on my decision.**

**Then we have George's POV which is generally him trying to deal with and understand Flay's Newtype awareness. Like I said in the notes for Flay's chapter, I want to portray George as more nuanced and realistic than his usual fanon betrayal which is a racist Dixiecrat who wants all Coordinators to die. Literally the only lines he says from the anime is requesting the Montgomery to hurry up and being worried for Flay's safety, normal dad things. Yet somehow from this everyone thinks he's Azrael's right hand. While he won't be a super progressive or fan of Coordinators in general, my portrayal of George is generally going to be an overworked single father whose trying to do his duty to his nation yet is caught in the middle of the shitshow that is the Atlantic deep state. I'll elaborate this more on future chapters with George and the greater government of the Atlantic Federation.**

**Lastly we have the revelation of Murata Azrael achieving his Newtype potential. Azrael becoming a Newtype, as well as the existence of Newtypes in general, is going to present a great philosophical dilemma for Blue Cosmos as while Newtypes are psychics that contain some abilities that are superior to Coordinators, they are **_**Natural-born **_**and tens of millions of Naturals suddenly became Newtypes overnight, with a great many other members of Blue Cosmos sharing Azrael's experience. This will greatly impact and shift their course in the future. Whether they shall embrace Newtypes or become Oldtype Natural supremacists remains to be seen.**

**This chapter was beta'd by Jaenera Targareyan, so thanks Jae and to all readers please go check out her work!**

**Next time we shall switch back to a couple of POV's from Zeon as well as seeing ZAFT's immediate reaction to Uroboros and their next move to Zeon. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	8. We're Not in Kansas Anymore

**October 1st, UC 0078. Texas, Autonomous Republic of Loum/Side 5. Sayla Mass POV**

With the Texas colony existing as a recreational colony to model the old American Wild West West, most of the restaurants that were present within the colony were likewise modeled after towns of the late 19th century American frontier, at least in architecture. The style of food that most of these establishments served were a mixture of American barbecue and southern American. It was here at one of these establishments, the Gun Barrel, that Sayla Mass took her lunch break on this day after working the morning shift in Texas' general hospital.

Walking through the saloon style doors, Sayla took a deep whiff of the place and let off a soft smile. While it wasn't the most healthy food that she could eat, the place had a nice comfortable atmosphere where you could hang around and relax for hours on end. It was a small social spot for Texas' youth due to its highly rated cuisine as well as a small recreational section where people could play pool, shoot darts, or play poker games.

It had once been a favorite of her brother Edouard Mass, or rather, Casval Deikun, mostly due to a small love that he accumulated for the pies that the Gun Barrel had served.

_'Casval. Why couldn't you have stayed with me and started a new life?'_ Sayla thought, momentarily longing for her deceased brother. As quickly as it came, Sayla did her best to shake her thoughts away, wanting to continue moving on as she had for the past couple of years. In some ways, it was a good thing that Char refused to return. For as much as it pained his parents, having him around would only fill Sayla with further pain for her brother.

Shaking off the memories, Artesia made her way to the bar to order a small lunch. She was met with a rotund black man who had a heavy salt and pepper beard adorning his face, a look which along with his cowboy apparel made him quite distinctive.

"Sayla! How have you been, I haven't seen you in nearly a month! Don't tell me you found someplace new?" The man, Benjamin Lamar, the owner of the restaurant and its resident bartender said, bringing a slight smile to Sayla's face.

"No, I've just been busy with my internship. I love the work, but it doesn't have the best schedule so every day I have to go in at a different time for long hours. Most days whenever I'm done, I just want to get back home and pass out." Artesia said, referencing her current work as a provisional nurse for the colony's main hospital, an experience which she hoped would get her into Miranda University, Loum's premier college and a school with a good medical program.

"That's right, you going to be a doctor now aren't ya. Man, I remember when you were just a tiny pint begging her daddy for a scoop of ice-cream, now you're going to go out there and save lives. Time sure flies by." Benjamin said.

"It sure does." Sayla said, nostalgia laced in her voice, longing for simpler days of her childhood as Artesia Deikun.

An unfortunate reminder of said past came blaring on the bar's television screen, with Sayla noticing what was playing. When she did, a deep scowl formed on her face.

_"The Federation has refused to grant the Sides neither sovereignty nor representation, denying our right to of citizenship and establishing an elite oligarchy to have total control over the many. The Federation maintains complete apathy to the wellbeing of their citizens after their exile, abandoning the colonies in poverty, with the national colonies of the Sides existing solely for exploitation. The Federation-" _Said the boisterous voice of Gihren Zabi, a man whose family was the cause of Sayla's misfortune, and possibly the death of her brother.

"What's going on?" Sayla asked, her once warm voice taking on a cold tone, something Benjamin noticed.

"Oh that, Gihren Zabi is reading out a Declaration of Independence, Side 3's finally doing it, they're going to break from the Federation entirely." Benjamin said.

"So they really went through with it, huh?" Sayla said. Her outward voice was neutral but inside of her was a flurry of emotions on the development. There had been a large amount of rumors and speculation within the Earth sphere this past month that Side 3 was moving towards total independence, something that Sayla was well aware about yet choose to ignore in order to focus on her career and taking care of her adoptive father, Don Teabloo Mass.

Unlike Casval who became radicalized by Jimba Ral and a hardcore Contolist before he died, Sayla wanted absolutely nothing to do with Zeon. Everything her father had built over his great career had been removed or warped into some twisted image by Degwin and his children. By now Side 3 existed as nothing more than a plaything for the Zabi's, her father's legacy and image only being used as a bastardization to further Gihren's propaganda. Anything remotely related to Zeon only brought Sayla a great amount of pain. Sometimes she wished that Side 3 would just disappear entirely, allowing her to move on with her life and start anew with no strings attached.

"Yeah, Degwin's got some balls, I'll say that. I'm just worried about how Loum's going to take this, we've got plenty of crazies spread throughout the colonies and within days they'll probably start marching in the streets and demand for independence or joining Zeon. I think it's all a bit silly in my opinion. Things are working out just fine and having lots of nations around will only bring pointless conflict. My Dad fought in the Unification Wars and some of the stories he gave about life in those tin pot third world countries were absolutely horrifying." Benjamin said, then stopping due to noticing Sayla's bad mood.

"If it bothers you that much Sayla I can change the channel. I just had it on because no matter how stupid it is, it's important history going on right now. However, I don't want any of my customers to have their appetite ruined by a Fascist." Benjamin offered.

Sayla let off a soft smile to show she appreciated the kind words, "It's alright, I was merely thinking of Char and how he hasn't been around in a couple of years. You can keep it going if you want, I'll just tune it out." She said, making an effort to put more energy into her voice while using Char's absence as a convenient excuse.

If she started showing visibly strong feelings toward Zeon, then people around her would begin to question her attitude and try to look into why she behaved in such a manner. It lead to questions about the past that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

Accepting her reasoning, Benjamin decided to back off of the topic, then taking her order and bringing her a glass of water.

For a period of time, Sayla did her best to tune out Gihren's speech, making small talk with Benjamin and focus her attention on anything other than the television set. Despite her best efforts, Sayla kept on drifting back to the screen, each of Gihren's proclamations making bold strikes at her heart.

If only she had been born under different circumstances. If only the name Zeon Zum Deikun meant nothing to humanity and Contolism was little more than a silly word. If only her father hadn't died at his prime, if only the Zabi family hadn't taken advantage of his death to sieze total power. If only Casval had stayed by her side. If only...

_"With this signing, I declare the Principality of Zeon and its citizens to be forever independent and free, from now until the end of time! SIEG ZEON!" _Came Degwin's voice, officially making Side 3 a De Facto independent state.

Loud cheers and jubilation met Degwin's proclamation, within the restaurant she could even hear a few Nationalists acting rambunctious and offering a Sieg Zeon to the Sovereign who was tens of thousands of kilometers away.

Accepting that the past no longer existed, Sayla raised her glass towards the television and spoke in soft melancholy, "Sieg Zeon."

Within less than a second, Sayla's entire world fell to white with her heart and soul burning as if they were on fire. Her glass fell out of her hand, shattering on the wooden floor in dozens of pieces with water and ice spread all over. Sayla, who was leaning back slightly, fell out of the bar stool and onto the floor with a hard thump.

"**Aaaguahugh!**" Sayla screeched in pure agony, shaking on the floor as her body fell into a fit of multiple spasms. Benjamin and a few of the nearby patrons rushed to help her, but there was nothing they could do, for Sayla's pain, like tens of millions of others within the Earth sphere, was spiritual. This pain was caused by an extraordinary event which would see a nation soon transported across space and time.

When the pain finally stopped for Sayla, she awoke and found herself not within the Gun Barrel, rather standing right before Casval's grave, somehow being transported kilometers across the colony within mere seconds.

Sayla remained frozen for several seconds, unsure of what was going on until she heard a voice speak softly behind her. "Artesia?"

Hearing a name that was long dead to her, Sayla quickly turned around and found herself face to face with a tall man in a red Zeon uniform, a black and gold cape flying against the wind while a white utility belt clung to his body with various tools. The man's face was one deathly familiar to her, one with striking blonde hair and blue eyes.

At first, Artesia thought that Char had returned, that he had somehow visited Casval's grave and brought her here. However, her awakening Newtype abilities allowed her a deep glimpse into the soul of the man before her, one with whom she had a deep familial bond that had been dead for several years, only to be reignited by a miracle.

"Casval?"  
**  
April 1st, CE 70. ZSFS Troy. Char Aznable POV**

"ARTES-!" Char shouted, awakening strongly with cold sweat running down his body, accompanied by heavy breathing. It was only due to his advanced spatial perception allowing his senses to take notice of his immediate environment as a medical bay within a Zeon Musai, that Char didn't dare to complete the name of his beloved sister, one who he had chosen to sever all ties with in his pursuit of vengeance.

Deeply believing that their conversation was entirely real and that he had spoken directly to his younger sister once more, Char reached out with his abilities and attempted to contact her, their time together confirming Char's theories that Artesia, just like him, was a Newtype.

While Char knew that he was tens of thousands of kilometers away from Loum, in an entirely different Lagrange Point due to being stationed with the Solomon fleet, he had a good feeling that his attempt could work. When he had collapsed in pain during a maintenance check on his Zaku-II, Char felt his latent abilities increase tremendously. He felt himself radiate a strong aura that while not as powerful as Lalah's, had closed the gap between him and herself in an incredible leap. If Artesia's abilities had somehow exploded during their contact, then surely she would be able to receive him as well?

His soul reached out into the vast void of space, desperately attempting to search and reach out for his sister. He tried to concentrate in L1, where the Texas colony was supposed to be. However, he found no traces of Artesia, instead being met with millions of foreign souls who were completely alien to Char.

He made every attempt to connect to Artesia, to reach out to her one more time and be in her presence, if only for a second. However, Char was met with absolutely nothing, due to both his lack of training in his abilities as well as his soul attempting to adjust to the new reality that he found himself there. While Char could feel the presence of thousands of Newtypes within the fleet, his sister was completely lost to him. It was as if Char was staring at an open ocean, only to be met with open waters and no signs of life.

When the medics had reached Char Aznable, they found the Troy's MS leader to be overwhelmed in grief, his face burning nearly as red as his uniform while tears stained his medical gown and the bed he was on. It was a startling sight for those on the ship who knew of Lieutenant Char Aznable as a highly composed and stoic figure.

While Char had no definitive proof, he knew deep within his heart that his sister Artesia was no forever lost to him. Mere distance no longer separated the children of Zeon Zum Deikun, instead the two were divided by the realms of space and time. Char had entered a brave new world, while Sayla had been left behind.  
**  
April 1st, CE 70. Zeon Roayal Palace. Zum City, Principality of Zeon. Garma Zabi POV**

After the Zabi family had been appraised of the situation within Side 3 with Degwin declaring martial law over the Principality, Garma was sent by his father into Zum City to help the garrison along with the Zum City police department to maintain order. While there was little that Garma could do as a single individual to help contain the riots and restore law and order, the visible presence of a Zabi helping the military and police to restore order would help bring a sense of calmness to the colony, preventing an escalation of anarchy.

For the most part, Garma's participation worked to its intended effect. Seeing the youngest Zabi prince lead and the field and on some cases work personally to defuse potential crises raised the morale of the Army and Police a great deal, energizing them to work quickly to get the colony back in order.

Fortunately for Garma, the situation was far from being as bad as it could be. Instead of all waking up at the same time, the denizens of Zum City seemed to regain unconsciousness at differing intervals, allowing the Army to deal with the worst outbreaks rather quickly and then install a system of damage control to ensure that those who would wake up would do so calmly and without violent restraint.

Most of Zum City's population had been watching the Declaration, so there were few terrible accidents caused by people falling into unconsciousness. That didn't mean that there were none as Garma had encountered a few ugly incidents where some cars had ran into each other or in buildings, but they were far less than what should have happened if the Event occurred on an average day meaning that casualties were in the hundreds and not thousands or tens of thousands.

Lastly, the fears of a general breakdown in social order fortunately did not happen as most people had enough common sense to not destroy their city and inflict harm on their neighbors. Oh there were opportunists who took the lack of law enforcement to commence looting, though most of these individuals were either caught or would soon be caught thanks to surveillance.

At the moment, Garma was giving a personal report on his activities to Degwin within his personal office in the Royal Palace. By now some semblance of normality had been achieved and with no word on the Far Side Fleet moving to conquer Zeon, Degwin had moved outside of the bunker and had resumed leadership in the Palace along with Gihren; Kycillia heading to the OSS to help install order within the colonies. By now most of the Army and ZCPD had regained consciousness, so Garma's presence was no longer needed, hence him returning to Degwin.

"You did good work Garma. You acted as a true Prince of Zeon and showed the people that we shall stay by their side in times of crisis." Degwin praised.

"Thank you father!" Garma said, beaming at the compliment that his father gave him, all signs of fatigue fading from the young Zabi.

With the death of his mother Naliss at his birth, Garma had always clung tightly to Degwin with his father reciprocating in a close bond that he did not develop with any of Garma's older siblings, largely spoiling his youngest, though in a sweet rather than in a rotten manner. Garma had always idolized Degwin and from a young age had sworn to himself that he would do anything to become just as great of a man as his father, the man who guided Zeon after Deikun's untimely passing and uplifted them from the harsh tyranny of gravity to the guiding light of all Spacenoids.

"I must say I am rather surprised though that we did not suffer some great catastrophe at the hospitals, I would think that there would be thousands of patients who would've been lost in critical surgery." Degwin said in confusion.

"I was just as surprised as well father, though it is a rather fortunate that so many lives were spared." Garma said, with Degwin nodding in return.

Since he was a child Garma had been deathly afraid of anything to do with medical care, his mother dying in child birth, Sasro dying from complications of his wounds in his assassination, and his elder siblings mother Alice dying from radiation poisoning. So many Zabis had died in the hospital that it made the building a rather dreary place for Garma to visit, even if he was getting something as simple as a flu shot. At one point in his childhood, Garma had heavily considered becoming a doctor, to prevent what happened to his family from happening to so many others. However his family's ambition and his drive to follow in his father's footsteps had Garma choose to make a career in the Army. At the very least he was satisfied that under Zabi rule healthcare within Side 3 had risen greatly in quality in the past decade.

"From the testimonies I had received from the hospitals, apparently many of the medical staff, especially the surgery teams, woke up within minutes of the event occurring. This allowed them to recover quickly and make sure that any lost time didn't impact the patients. Even the maternity wards made it through unscathed." Garma said, his stomach feeling queasy at the mention of childbirth, an event that took his mother's life at the cost of his own.

"That is rather fortunate." Degwin said, ending the subject due to the knowledge of his son's unease within the medical world, something Garma was rather thankful for.

"However father, there was something...strange that seemed to happen in the event besides millions of people passing out." Garma said.

"What do you mean?" Degwin asked.

"I encountered a few cases myself, but it appears that for several people, when they awoke they found their family and loved ones suddenly appearing right next to them in their homes. Family and loved ones who at the time of the Event were supposed to be in the other Sides, the moon, or even Earth." Garma said. It was a statement that he would find ludicrous or impossible if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

"You're saying that these people just appeared out of thin air and into their homes?"

Garma nodded. "It sounds like some sort of cheap magic trick but that's what occurred. The police got several emergency calls stating that some impostor showed up in their house, yet in all of the cases I encountered, these were legitimate. No matter what these mystery people were doing at the time of the Declaration, at one moment they were somewhere tens of thousands of kilometers across the Earth sphere, and in the next moment after closing their eyes, they find themselves in their homes surrounded by their families." Garma said, growing incredibly uneasy when he noticed Degwin's attitude, as if Garma's words were confirming something Degwin already knew.

"Garma, at this point I have received dozens of reports from across the colonies. All of them share a similar occurrence to what you had just said." Degwin said, shocking Garma.

"So this isn't an isolated incident? Millions of people are just popping into their homes across the colonies?!" Garma asked in disbelief, Degwin nodding in confirmation.

"It's not the only...bizarre event that we have observed. Remember how I said that we may have been transported to another world?" Degwin asked, Garma nodding in response. At the time and up til now, Garma had just believed it to be the Federation hacking into Side 3's satellites. Such a miraculous event couldn't possibly have happened. Right?

"It seems that from the information that we have collected at this point, my theory is becoming more true by the minute. Several hours ago, Admiral Lutjens at Pezun had contacted me of what had occured at L4. It appears that Sides 2 and 6 have been replaced by a collection of seven colonies. All of these belong to a nation called the Republic of East Asia, a nation whose Admiral, Lutjens made contact with and confirmed that this is not our Earth sphere.

Communications that have been intercepted across the near side of Luna and what is supposed to be Side 5 have revealed a state of affairs that are completely alien to what we are supposed to expect from Loum and the Lunar cities. Several mentions are made to some sort of an Earth Alliance and an ongoing war taking place near Earth orbit.

We have received a report from Axis and it appears that Jupiter, or I should rather say, the Jupiter sphere, is completely gone. The planet is still where it should be, however the Jupiter sphere along with many of the Belt colonies have completely disappeared." Degwin said.

With each word that came out of his father's mouth, Garma began to grow more pale and feel ill. All of these were impossibilities that simply shouldn't exist, yet it appeared that the entire solar system outside of Side 3 had been reshaped within less than a day.

"Lastly is an incident that took place near the Kudelia colony. A Musai called the _Brunswick_ intercepted a cargo freighter coming from Jupiter that appeared to be violating the No Fly Zone that I had ordered. The ship, called the _Raifuku Maru_, was escorted by the Brunswick to Kudelia where it along with its crew were interred. From what the local State Security detachment along with Customs reported, the ship's crew seemed to be spouting nonsense, claiming that they were from a Pacific nation named Orb and that they were on a return voyage from trading with the _Martian states_. Then, two hours ago, Solomon and Pezun received this message." Degwin said, motioning Garma to his computer where Degwin played a video.

Within moments, an image propped up showing an elderly Asian man sitting at a desk. The man was wearing a maroon suit (a rather gaudy fashion choice in Garma's opinion) and sported a brown, but graying, goatee with long hair that flowed down his back. The man seemed to be middle aged, at least around a decade younger than Degwin.

_"To the unknown asteroids within L4 and L5, my name is Uzumi Nara Athha, Chief Representative of the Orb Union. I am sending this message to you in the belief that you are connected to the unknown closed colonies within L2. Hours ago, a ship called the ZSFS Brunswick, a green cruiser similar to the hundreds within your fleets, detained an Orb freighter, the SS Raifuku Maru, and escorted her to a Kudelia colony. This action is a violation of Orb's sovereignty, however it is one which I believe to be of misunderstanding rather than malice. We bear no ill will towards your nation, Orb is a peaceful country and we wish to be neutral in all affairs. All I simply ask is for the safe return of the Raifuku Maru and its crew._

_At 1800 Colonial Standard, a small flotilla of three Izumo battlecruisers shall be sent from our colony Heliopolis in L3 to your colonies in L2. We have no wish to start a conflict, merely to have the cruisers escort the Raifuku Maru safely to Heliopolis to avoid the dangers of the war. The head of this flotilla shall be an Orb officer who is authorized to engage in diplomatic negotiations._

_If you are truly connected to this unknown nation, then I request that a message be sent to the L2 colonies as soon as possible for peaceful contact. Please reply as soon as possible in order to avoid any misunderstandings."_ The video then ended, freezing in place with the man at his desk.

Garma looked towards Degwin in shock, his father wearing a completely neutral expression, most likely due to having already gone through the message already.

"So we truly are in another world?" Garma asked, Degwin nodded slowly.

"To quote a classic film, We're not in Kansas anymore. We're still trying to comprehend the information that's coming in, but while the physical solar system and the rest of the galaxy is the same, it appears that the Earth sphere as we know is entirely different. I don't know how, but Zeon, along with the far side of the moon, Solomon, and Pezun have been transported to what appears to be a different timeline. From what little we know so far, it appears that in this timeline, called the _Cosmic Era_, there was neither a Third World War nor was there an Earth Federation. The Earth is still divided into nation-states, though it appears to be less than a dozen in comparison to the two hundred nations that make up the Federation.

Space colonization is far limited with only less than two hundred colonies in existence while humanity has never colonized past the Belt. Mars seems to be terraformed much like in the Universal Century, though it appears there is some 'Wild West' era with dozens of independent ventures founding their own states on the fourth planet. Lastly it appears that there's some sort of great controversy regarding genetic manipulation and people called _Coordinators_. I don't know the full detail, but these appear to be a sub-species of humans who have been genetically engineered inside of the womb to become superior beings." Degwin said, an exasperated look on his face showing that even he was still trying to comprehend what was going on.

Feeling overwhelmed, Garma collapsed into a leather chair in front of Degwin. "I think I need a drink father." Garma said, receiving a laugh from Degwin in response.

"I as well son. Most of this information that we have learned comes from the East Asians in L4, a nation that appears to be an expanded China. The transmission that we received is from a nation called Orb, a microstate within the Pacific that seems to be an economic powerhouse and the Switzerland of this timeline, as they are rather notorious for their total neutrality and pacifism."

"Orb? That's a rather queer name for a nation. It would be like if we called ourselves the Cube Republic." Garma said.

"I agree with you, though I haven't had a chance to read into the complete history of any of these nations, so who knows why they came up with such a strange name. The transmission was sent to us by Dozle and Lutjens, so we'll be moving to deal with this matter shortly." Degwin said.

"Speaking of father, what about those weird hourglasses in L5, are they a threat to Dozle?" Garma asked, concerned for his brother's safety.

"I have no idea. From what the East Asians told us, those hourglasses are a nation called PLANT, a colonial side inhabited by those Coordinators who are currently in a rebellion against their sponsor nations, the Earth Alliance." Degwin said, noticing Garma growing rather uneasy at the parallels between PLANT and Zeon, "I know what it sounds like, but we can't rush into any conflict without knowing why these people are fighting. Dozle has been trying to contact PLANT, but none of Solomon's transmissions can reach the colonies and they've made no effort to open up communications while their fleets are hugging their colonies."

"Are we going to initiate contact with this new Earth sphere father?" Garma asked, surprised when Degwin shook his head.

"As much as I would like to, we are in an extremely vulnerable position due to being completely cut off from all economic ties with the old Earth sphere. I have closed the stock markets for now, but when they do open we'll most likely be hit with a deep recession as the people panic about being thrust into a new world. Millions of people are still unconscious from the Event, and we still have the Far Side fleet and cities to contend with. Those are the ones I fear the most as who knows how these people will act when they find out they are cut off from Earth. If we are to formally introduce ourselves into this Cosmic Era, we must do so as a powerful and indivisible nation. No weakness must be presented to these Earthnoid states, they must treat us as an equal or else it shall mean war."

"Are we not going to let the people know about this father?"

"Word shall eventually spread, so this is going to be impossible to contain. For now I have ordered a media blackout and for State Security to obtain direct control of all communications satellites. If the domestic situation is secure within the next 48 hours, then I shall announce our new state of affairs to the nation, and then hopefully proceed with a formal first contact with the Earthnoids. However, we still have the matter of the Raifuku Maru to deal with, and that is where you come in Garma."

"Me?" Garma asked, sitting straight and alert while receiving a nod from Degwin.

"From what I have gathered, Orb is a nation with no hard power and a miniscule presence in space. Still, that does not give us the right to treat another sovereign nation with such disrespect and I would rather give a good first impression to our new neighbors. Garma, I want you to travel to Kudelia and meet with the crew of the ship, personally ensure that they have been treated well and they do not have any strong grudges with us. From there you shall handle direct negotiations with this Orb flotilla and ensure the safe return of the Raifuku Maru to Orb."

"Are you sure that I am the best person for this assignment father?" Garma said, unsure that he was so fit to handle first contact with a nation that didn't exist a day ago. Surely Gihren or Kycillia would be best suited for the task, they were always better than Garma.

In response, Degwin got out of his chair and walked to Garma, placing his right hand on Garma's left shoulder. "Garma, you are a prince of Zeon, a son of House Zabi. I want to show this Orb that we shall treat them with respect, and what better way than to send my son? Make no mistake, this exchange is crucial to what the Earthnoid states think of us. With the Federation ceasing to exist, we are now and shall forever be an independent nation. I would rather us integrate peacefully into this new Earth sphere than have the lives of millions of sons and daughters of Zeon perish in a war brought about by misunderstanding. This mission needs to be a success, and I have every faith that you are more than up to the task Garma. Go forward my son, and let history remember you as the man who helped to push Zeon into this new Earth sphere."

Garma felt tears well up in his eyes, proud that his father believed in himself so strongly. He shot up to attention and gave a salute to Degwin. "I won't let you down father! For the glory of Zeon I shall complete my mission and make sure that this first contact goes perfectly. Sieg Zeon!"

After some further time spent going over the details of Garma's trip, the young prince made his way out of Degwin's office on a journey to the space port where he would take a shuttle to the _Great Degwin_, and from there travel to Kudelia to meet the Raifuku Maru.

On his way outside of the palace, Garma's thoughts strayed to his best friend, Char Aznable. From what he knew of Char, he had parents within Side 5 who he had become estranged with over the years. Unless Char was lucky enough to have his parents be teleported to Side 3, then it meant that they still remained in the Universal Century, an entire reality separate from the new one Zeon found itself in.

Garma hoped that if such was the case that his best friend would manage to pull through okay. Garma vowed that the next time he saw Char that he would help him in any way he could.

**April 1st, CE 70. 1200 Colonial Standard. PLANT Capitol. Aprilius One. PLANT. Patrick Zala POV**

For those who passed by Defense Chairman Patrick Zala in the halls of the PLANT Capitol, they would notice something slightly unsettling about his demeanor. For the first time in two months, Patrick Zala was sporting a wide smile, happy and gleeful as can be. The reason for this was due to the news that Operation Uroboros was a complete success, most of the Alliance Orbital Fleet having been wiped out while the Alliance on Earth was slowly beginning to lose a supermajority of their power with the shutdown of the nuclear fission plants.

From this news one thing was absolutely clear to Patrick, the end of the war was near and by the end of the month PLANT would have independence and total victory.

Originally Patrick had no intention of using the N-Jammers in such a brutal manner as to cause most of Earth's population to lose their power. He had standards and knew fully that Coordinators would not only suffer from the loss of power, but also become targets of retaliation. All he had planned to do was to use it to defend the PLANTs, wipe out the Alliance fleets, and cut off Earth from the moon, forcing the Alliance to sue for peace. This had been Patrick's plan for victory when the Alaska Declaration was produced.

Then Lenore Zala was murdered in the nuking of Junius Seven, taking away Patrick's wife, the mother of his son, his entire world was gone in mere seconds. All because of the damned Naturals.

All his life Patrick had known loss and hardship. When he was a teenager his parents were brutally murdered by Blue Cosmos thugs in a targeted hit on their house, Patrick only surviving due to going out to party with his friends. This forced him to survive alone, living as an outcast in his own home, struggling to get by on a daily basis until the PLANTs were constructed, with him shipping out to Aprilius as one of its first laborers.

In the colonies Patrick had found a new circle of friends, his first day having him bump into a young Scandinavian idealist who would become someone that Patrick had for a long time considered to be a brother in all but blood. He made a home for himself in PLANT, becoming part of a community that was born with the same genes that he had, free to live as they pleased. It was in the PLANTs that Patrick had found love, started a family, and became a new man.

Despite all the wonderful things that happened to him in the PLANTs, it was far from a wonderful life. Despite being exiled to space, the persecution of the Naturals refused to end, exporting their reign of terror to the PLANTs, his fellow Coordinators being attacked on a daily basis for trying to live their lives in the hourglasses that they had been imprisoned in. The heavy regulations and authoritarian control of the sponsor nations through the UN PLANT Army made any possibility of forming a quality of life near equal to Earth impossible. After their great forefather, George Glenn, was assassinated in 53, any possibility of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence went out the door, forcing Patrick to take action by founding ZAFT, the instrument of PLANTs preservation.

For years Patrick had played by the rules, bowing to the flimsy excuse of taking the moral highground, following Siegel's naive agenda to counter the Naturals with peaceful opposition every step of the way. When Patrick formed ZAFT, he formed it as a defensive militia, a force that shall only strike when attacked. All of this was absolutely meaningless in the end when Lenore was nuked into oblivion, no body left for him and Athrun to bury.

Patrick swore that he would avenge his wife, that her death would not be meaningless and would instead be a righteous cause for him to deliver retribution to the Naturals. With the success of Operation Uroboros, he was one step closer to honoring her memory completely.

Patrick marched into the council chambers with great stride, his fellow councilmen all being in attendance at his request. There was an exhausted look on each of their faces, this being due to mental fatigue in stress rather than physical exhaustion as a Coordinator could go days without sleep in comparison to a Natural.

"Everyone, I bring to you glorious news. Operation Uroboros is a complete success." Patrick said with great confidence, causing the council to erupt to total jubilation, shouts of joy and a few wild hollers greeting the good tidings. Well, almost everybody. Reactions varied widely with Ezalia proudly shouting "Victory is ours!" while Eileen gave an energized round of applause with a smile on her face. The only one who didn't celebrate was Siegel, adorning a somber, though outwardly neutral mood.

Siegel's attitude caused Patrick's face to warp from a smile to a brief frown. They had struck an unrecoverable blow on the Alliance with the victims of Junius Seven avenged and Siegel acted like this was a tragedy?!

_'You've always had too big of a bleeding heart Sieg.'_ Patrick grimaced. No matter what atrocities the Naturals inflicted upon them, Siegel could never hold an ounce of hate for those loathsome people. A Blue Cosmos member could probably murder Lacus in front of him and Siegel would not dare to avenge her. At the very least he allowed Uroboros to proceed, showing to Patrick that his friend would at least do what his duty required of him. He could respect that much.

"From the report that Admiral Singh has sent, at minimum 3,000 Alliance ships have been destroyed with over 20,000 mobile armors lost as well. A tenth of the Alliance fleet has been eradicated while as we speak, Central Asia is being targeted with N-Jammers. Everything has gone according to our greatest expectations." Patrick said, prompting more celebrations from the council.

When the cheers had died down, Siegel was the first to ruin the atmosphere. "What were our losses in the operation Chairman Zala?" He asked, causing everyone to quiet down at the remembrance of the lives lost in the operation.

Once upon a time, Patrick and Siegel had referred to each other casually with their first names in meetings. Nowadays, they would always address one another as Chairman Clyne and Chairman Zala unless they were engaged in personal conversations outside of council business. It was a sign of how far things had fallen between the once brothers.

_'Something that would never have happened if he dropped his delusions of peace.'_ Patrick lamented.

We lost a total of 64 ships with a collection of 77 ships suffering varied degrees of damage. Altogether 471 mobile suits were lost in the exchange. Even still, this is a 50 to 1 ratio that has seen the absolute destruction of the Orbital fleet. Every one of our soldiers lost was worth it." Patrick said. He could've sworn though that he heard Siegel whisper "Was it?". Patrick was about to demand a clarification, though this was prevented by Parnel Jesek addressing him.

"What about the stealth fleet? Now that Uroboros is a confirmed success, how shall we deal with them?" He asked. The entire council looked to him, giving Patrick the floor to respond.

"With the complete success of Uroboros, it is undeniable that the stealth fleets are worthless and will face no fate but annihilation against our forces. As such, I have drafted a battle plan that with the council's approval, shall see this force eliminated within the next 24 hours. What I propose is to send a fleet of 130 ships to face the stealth fleet head on and destroy their composition. This force shall be led under ZAFT Whitecoat Keishiro Fukuyama who shall act as provisional Admiral."

Patrick did his best to hid his annoyance when he said Keishiro's rank. This whole color coded ranking system was nothing but asinine garbage that belonged in a cliche science fiction story. ZAFT could have been properly organized with legitimate ranks, but NOOO! Siegel wanted ZAFT to be a militia force to defend themselves. It should be an organization that prides in the individuality of its servicemen, not a proper military force as PLANT would have no need for one after victory.

Such thoughts were the height of foolishness. The Natural's irrational hatred would not die after the end of the war, they would always be jealous of the Coordinator's genetic superiority and would stop at nothing to annihilate them. There would always be war and ZAFT would have to reform into a proper military sooner or later, it was inevitable.

"What about the mobile suits? Surely their involvement will give a boost to the Alliance's performance and cause more losses for us, especially with a greater inferiority in numbers than Uroboros." Yuri protested.

"The stealth fleet's mobile suits may appear to be modeled off of the GINN, but in the hands of Naturals they will be little more than a bi-plane to a fighter jet. Tests with Natural freelancers on the GINN as well as information from our sources inside Morgenroete show that Naturals are simply incompatible with the mecha. Their inferior biology makes them unfit to fight in a humanoid machine as they can barely get it moving while our pilots can become experts with little training. Even if these mobile suits are somehow superior, an impossibility to be sure, the inferiority of the Natural's piloting skills will make them nothing but target for our pilots." Patrick explained.

"What about the fortress? What will happen to it when we deal with the enemy fleet?" Asked Ali Kasim.

"After we eliminate the fleet, we shall demand the surrender of the fortress. If they do so, then I would like to request for it to be converted to ZAFT's control so that it can be our primary citadel in L5. If we also manage to convert Jachin Due, then this gives us two fortresses to guard our borders, ensuring that the Alliance shall never get anywhere close to an attack." Patrick responded.

"And if they refuse to surrender?" Ali asked.

"In that scenario, in order to avoid the bloodshed of close quarters combat that would surely claim the lives of many of our soldiers, I would like to request the deployment of our nuclear arsenal to eliminate the fortress." Patrick said calmly, prompting a small collection of horrified gasps from the rest of the council.

"Patrick that is too far, with the N-Jammer we don't need to escalate with nuclear warfare!" Siegel responded, prompting a snarl from Patrick.

"Escalate, ESCALATE?! We already escalated this conflict when we wiped out a majority of the Earth's energy grid!" Patrick shouted back, causing Siegel to back down in reminder of what he had approved. "We must send a strong message to the Alliance that we will not tolerate their further presence in L5. That asteroid is a disgusting mockery to the tragedy of Junius Seven, and if they choose not to surrender, then we must eliminate it."

"Still, to use the same weapons that caused Bloody Valentine..."Eileen said.

"THIS IS NOTHING LIKE BLOODY VALENTINE!" Patrick yelled, infuriated that she would dare compare a legitimate military strike to the massacre that took Lenore away from him and Athrun. "The Atlantic Federation butchered 250,000 of our citizens under the pretense of a false flag. This is a nuclear strike on a military target, one that shall only take place in the event that they refuse to surrender. We have every right to use nukes here, it is time to give the Naturals a taste of their own medicine!" Patrick proclaimed, setting off a flurry of furious debate on the ethics of using nuclear warfare.

After a half an hour of debate, approval for what was dubbed Operation Midway was given. While most of Patrick's plan remained intact, approval for the usage of nuclear weapons was strictly forbidden thanks to Siegel's influence as well as the psychological stigma of many of the councilmen towards such weapons, something that caused the existing animosity between the two friends to rise further. In the end, all that mattered to Patrick was that he was given approval and that within 24 hours the asteroid and the stealth fleet would be wiped out.

If only Patrick had known that he would be picking a fight with the Titan of Zeon, Dozle Zabi.

**A/N: Just so you guys are all aware, Sayla is remaining in the Universal Century and she wasn't transported along with Zeon since she was at Side 5. Her conversation with Char will be revealed later in a future chapter focused on him. As for whether Sayla will meet Char again like Dozle and Mineva, the possibility remains open. For now, Char has lost his last remaining family and is now in an alien world. Whether or not Char continues on his quest and succeed in striking down the Zabis, or his fate is altered drastically by the Cosmic Era pulling him into new directions shall be explored as we journey our way through Cosmic Crusade.**

**Next we have Garma being sent by Degwin to deal with the Raifuku Maru and make contact with Orb. I know to some of the readers that it may seem rushed to have Degwin and the Zabis just accept that they're now in another solar system, but I didn't want to waste multiple chaters about miscommunication and the Zabis being perplexed about the world around them. So officially, the Zabis now that they're in the Cosmic Era, but Degwin is not going to reveal it to Side 3 and the rest of the Earth sphere yet as he wants to make sure Zeon is united and strong while he doesn't want to rush actions towards the CE states without knowing who they are. This is going to have major repercussions for the next couple of chapters.**

**Out of all the Gundam antagonists, Patrick has always been one of the more interesting to me as he's not a generic evil dictator who wants to conquer all and he doesn't have some ludicrous ideology he wants to impart on the world. Rather, Patrick's path is one caused by him being a victim throughout his life of the persecution placed upon him as a Coordinator. Unlike most Gundam villains, Patrick was directly hurt by the other faction with the brutal death of his wife Lenore, sending him from a presumably strict hardliner to a genocidal maniac. In some ways this turned Patrick into someone who was more extreme than Gihren as Patrick wanted to wipe out all life on Earth and render it a burning rock. Patrick's journey shall be a main focus of this fic and in later chapters we'll explore whether he will be able to rise up or continue his downward spiral. As they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.**

**Next chapter we shall receive an answer on the Alliance's response to Uroboros and Zeon, as well as the final prelude before ZAFT and Zeon's official first contact at Solomon. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	9. How NOT to handle First Contact

After Admiral Chen had made first contact with Wilhelm Lutjens and the greater Zeon 3rd fleet, he had sent the transcripts of the conversation as well as information that Zeon had transmitted to them of the Universal Century to East Asia's premiere lunar base, the Maginus lunar base. While the East Asian lunar command was highly skeptical of the claims that Admiral Chen made, there was little evidence to directly contradict the Admiral's claims of a new nation being transported to the Cosmic Era, not to mention the sheer impossibility of such an infrastructural project for the previously carefully regulated PLANT. After some minor debate, East Asia sent its data to its Atlantic, Eurasian, and South African allies to inform them of the latest development.

Calls ran back and forward between the Alliance based with intense discussion over the veracity of these claims and whether or not they should send a fleet to Zeon. Outside of the threat of hundreds of space colonies within L2, there was also the sudden appearance of nine lunar cities on the far side, with transmissions to the near side asking for a _Von Braun_ and _Earth Federation_ seeming to further fuel the legitimacy of Zeon's existence.

All was set for a peaceful first contact between Zeon and the Alliance, and had the insertion been made days ago, such an event might have occured. Unfortunately for both parties, The April Fools Miracle occurred hours before Uroboros.

When the Orbital fleet survivors came back from the Battle of April Fools, they spread tales of the impossible, how the Coordinators had unleashed a mysterious weapon that had completely halted the nuclear fission process within the Alliance's reactors. This caused the ships to be left adrift and powerless and ZAFT proceeded to destroy each ship and mobile armor by the thousands. A few survivors also shared tales of war crimes, of how ZAFT had gleefully fired on hundreds of escape pods and shuttles of the Alliance, the survivors only remaining alive due to sheer luck and lack of ammunition. Of course, some of the survivors were Blue Cosmos members who would've gladly committed the same crimes if there was no N-Jammer, but that was irrelevant in the here and now.

With the indisputable firsthand account of hundreds of thousands of survivors, the Alliance command quickly fell into a terrified hysteria over the impossibility of Coordinators somehow managing to defy the laws of physics. All warships were recalled to the Lunar bases to serve as defensive emplacements to make sure that the Lunar cities would make a grand last stand against the Coordinator menace while Earth suffered from lack of power. The lunar engineers were also quick at work on converting as many ships as they could to chemical rockets for propulsion so that they could have some maneuverability in battle and not be sitting ducks, completely open to the GINNs.

A grave consequence of the existence and lack of knowledge of the N-Jammer as the cessation of any attempts to make contact with Zeon. To the Alliance, if ZAFT was somehow able to defy physics itself, then surely they could create hundreds of colonies with no resources and plant two stealth fleets with asteroids at L4 and L5? Decades of fear against the enhanced came to its worst as most Alliance members assumed that anything was possible by these superhumans who could seemingly bend reality to their whim. A tragic result from this would be hate crimes committed against Coordinator personnel or civilians within the lunar cities, thousands of casualties breaking out on the first day alone.

To the Alliance, Zeon did not and never existed, it was all an elaborate rouse by ZAFT to get the Alliance to drop their guard down and strike at their most vulnerable. While there were a good number of flag officers who were still open to the idea of Zeon's existence, they were a shrinking minority with those at the very top assuming a Coordinator plot.

Had the Alliance fleets stayed at their bases then maybe something could be salvaged before it was too late. Unfortunately, events within Maginus set in motion the second half of the First Contact War, the Battle of Pezun.

**April 1st, 70 CE. 2000 Colonial Standard. Maginus East Asian Lunar Base. Third Person POV**

"Let the record show that I, General Park Dae-Woo, strongly object to this asinine plan which is nothing more than the greatest strategic blunder of this war and a massive waste of hundreds of thousands of our men!" Shouted vehemently General Park Dae-woo, the only Korean, as well as non Han-Chinese, member of East Asian Space Command (EASC) the body of flag officers who held direct command over East Asia's space deployments in the Earth sphere. General Park was head of the People's Liberal Army Lunar corps, a subdivision of the ground force dedicated to infantry and mechanized operations on the moon.

The plan that Park so strongly objected to was the deployment of 2300 ships to the "stealth fleet" located in L4 and have them attack the fleet and the fortress. While such a plan was suicidal with the N-Jammer (as survivors were quick to referring to the mysterious ZAFT superweapon), it was a belief of the majority of ESAC that the stealth fleets weren't equipped with the N-Jammers, which was why they were desperately claiming to be this "Zeon", a lie to get them prepared for the installation of the N-Jammer and for their stealth systems to work at full capacity.

To make sure that they wouldn't run into any ships with the N-Jammer, a simple test would be conducted. A flight of over 2,000 mobile armors would be sent to the stealth fleet while being presented as a patrol to make way for a fleet that is supposed to go en route to the L4 colonies. These MA's, the Azure-class, would then choose a stealth ship or collection of stealth ships, and fire dozens of nukes at the vessel. If the nuke went off, then the fleet was to attack and annihilate them with a major portion of East Asia's nuclear stockpile. If not, then they would retreat to the moon.

"We have too many unknowns on the Coordinators to simply waste away over a quarter of our remaining fleet on a wild and childish gambit. If the stealth fleet does have access to N-Jammers, then our men will be marched to their deaths on a manner so foolhardy that it would make Mussolini look like the second coming of Sun Tzu. Even if there are no N-Jammers, the numbers are simply too great for an engagement in battle without the deployment of a majority of our fleet as well as our allies. We would need over 10,000 ships just to get a victory." Park said.

"What do you know about space battles Park?" An Admiral barked.

"I may not serve on a warship on a daily basis, but what I do know is that 5,000 of our best ships were obliterated by 900 ZAFT vessels with minimal losses. We have only won victories in this war through overwhelming numbers, therefore it is ludicrous to not send a force of at least a 10 to 1 ratio against a force of 1278 ships with seemingly more advanced models than those at orbit." Park replied, a strong line of logic that few could deny. "L4 is strategically useless. The loss of that point is worthless compared to the loss of one of our lunar cities. We must retreat and concentrate everything we have here. We evacuated L1, therefore we should evacuated L4."

"Perhaps you want to retreat like a coward Park because you hold sympathy for your Nationalist kin?" The same agitator questioned with a sneer, a grave insult to Park that gave great pause and disapproval to even the most diehard Chinese nationalists within the room.

"HOW DARE YOU! I have served my country proudly for over thirty years, my father fought the Seoul regime to create a unified East Asia! Yet you dare to question my allegiances-"Park said, fuming greatly with his face turning red over the racist accusations, only to be interrupted by the head of ESAC, Fleet Admiral Wei Gang.

"Settle down General, your superiors and equals hold no doubt of your loyalty and service to the nation, it is just unfortunate that some choose to hold onto the past and overlook the virtue and character of their fellow man. A lesson that will be reminded later." Wei said, eyeing down Park's agitator who slithered into his seat under the pressure.

"As for your objections General, L4 is not strategically useless. While the homeland and the colonies proper are populated by outstanding citizens who are loyal to the state and would dare not betray their kin, the criminals and vagrants of L4 are proven Ultranationalists who would overturn the enlightenment of the Cosmic Era and degrade us back to the backwards days of Anno Domini. The L4 cluster was created to give these vagrants land to start new lives while preventing them from spreading their dangerous sedition to corrupt citizens. If ZAFT decides to conquer the L1 colonies, we have nothing to fear because they are populated by good citizens who will never cooperate with the Coordinators. If they conquer the L4 colonies, they shall create a puppet state which shall act as a mouthpiece to promote secession and the dissolution of the Republic. Therefore, it is of the upmost national security that we eliminate this stealth fleet before an invasion begins." Said Wei, completely oblivious to the racial hypocrisy that he made in defending Park as well as vilifying those within the L4 colonies.

"Even so, like I said sir, it would be best to engage in this battle with overwhelming numbers. As we cannot send the entirety of the Space Force to a single battle, can we not call on our allies for help?" Park pleaded, wanting to desperately use any logic to avert, or at least heavily edit this foolish action.

"We have tried to contact our allies, however they refuse to adhere to the terms of the Alaska Declaration and would rather protect their own cities than act as true members of the Alliance. While South Africa's decision is understandable, Eurasia and the Atlantic Federation refuse to see our need, calling L4 a _strategic waste_. Just goes to show you that despite the diplomat's honey words, the West shall always seek to dominate and overpower us just as they have been doing for the last three centuries." Wei said.

Along with the military downsides to such an operation, the Atlantic Federation and Eurasia would never choose to engage in such an operation to protect the L4 Ghettos as they were referred to by the Earth sphere at large outside of East Asia. It was one of the greatest criticisms of East Asia in their decision to deport tens of millions of Japanese and Koreans to the colonies, people who they dubbed as subversive Ultranationlists who sought to destroy the nation. It was a symptom of East Asia's structure and how China and the Han came to dominate the nation. In return, East Asia was a vocal critic of Eurasia's subjugation of the Middle East, while claiming the Atlantic Federation did far worse with their Native Americans in the past.

Noticing how the conversation was shifting and not wanting his heritage to be brought into play as questioning his loyalties, Park accepted his defeat begrudgingly, though fortunately it appeared that he wasn't the only one opposed to the plan one way or another.

"While I am not opposed to the creation of such a plan persay, I do not agree that it should be implemented without the approval of President Zhang. It has been six hours since we last had contact with him, and I would advise against taking any drastic operations without his approval or an understanding of the current succession and leadership for the nation." Said the commanding voice of Fleet Admiral Shen Guozhi, the man in charge of East Asia's lunar fleet and the highest ranking officer under Wei in ESAC.

At age 66, Shen was one of the oldest flag officers within the People's Army and one of its first innovators in the space combat doctrine that arose in the thirties. He was a conservative strategist who held his cards close to his chest and only struck in overwhelming force and firepower when he had manipulated the situation to his complete advantage. This set him at odds with the ambitous and brash Wei, who had been promoted over Shen as head of ESAC due to heavy political influence as concerns over Shen's age, making the two great political rivals.

During the entire course of this meeting up til now, Shen had been the most vocal in recalling the fleets to the moon and formulating a defense of their bases, a natural bias considering his position. Inwardly, Shen fully agreed with Park and found the notion of the L4 cluster as some strategic necessity as ridiculous. It was also due to his long-hidden personal beliefs of the existence of the whole L4 cluster being a backwards waste of taxes that only served to increase Nationalist sentiment instead of reducing it. Time and money going into the cluster could've been spent better developing East Asian Luna or social programs that would eliminate old prejudices.

Due to Shen bringing up the argument, as well as how politically correct and factual it was, Wei did his best to suppress a groan and formulate a response. "While it is imperative that we of course follow the directives of President Zhang, these are extraordinary times in which decisive action must be taken now to end the threat of the Coordinators. We cannot sit around and wait for the President and Beijing to respond when East Asia is suffering from a lack of energy, we must move swiftly to preserve the nation. This is why, unless contact with the President is re-established at midnight colonial standard, then I shall declare Heaven's Fall." Wei said, bringing about stunned looks from the rest of ESAC while Shen glared slightly.

Heaven's Fall was a contingency crafted in 46 CE where in case of nuclear war on Earth that eliminated civilian and military leadership on the planet, then martial law would be declared by ESAC with the PLA Space Force taking direct control of East Asia's colonies. The contingency also conveniently made Wei the acting president.

While what was now occurring didn't exactly fall under the scenario, it was of near equal destruction that Wei could legitimately implement the contingency and claim it was a necessary good.

Surprisingly to Wei, Shen gave his assent, "Of course Admiral. However, should contact be resumed with the President before then or after, then command will naturally revert to civilian control as it was meant to be." Shen said neutrally.

"Of course!" Wei responded, eyes narrowing suspiciously with him being unsure what the crafty old man was up to. Whatever the case, with his rival backing down, then surely Heaven's Fall would be implemented with no trouble, which after a small discussion of how Heaven's Fall would be taken effect, the rest of the Admiralty and Generals present gave their assent or choose to abstain.

Before Wei could discuss in further detail of the operation to eliminate the stealth fleets, he was interrupted by Admiral Chen whose attendance was taken through a video chat displayed on one of the ESAC council's many monitors, along with a handful of other officers.

"Admiral, during the presentation I noticed that my fleet was absent in the plans despite our close proximity to Pezun as they call the asteroid. What is to be our role in the operation?" Said Chen, who after the beginning of the discussion had chosen to quietly sit down and observe the proceedings, of which he disapproved greatly.

"Do not worry Admiral, we have forgotten about your ships. As the defense of the L4 cluster is what this operation is all about. As such, your ships are to remain in a defensive perimeter around the colonies and are to stay there during the battle. However, Admiral Lin is going to be given operational authority over you and should the battle proceed well, then he shall request reinforcements to deal with the remains of the stealth fleet. If the stealth fleet is to be found with N-Jammers, then you are to retreat to the moon as any battle were to become unwinnable." Wei said.

"And the L4 garrisons?" Chen said, feeling nauseous about abandoning the Army to the Coordinators.

"As we are unable to organize a large scale evacuation at this time, then they are to remain in place and continue with their duties. After the scenario where your fleet withdraws, they are to remain and create a defense against a Coordinator invasion. Hopefully when such a possibility arises, we shall have refitted our fleets with chemical rockets and shall directly prevent an invasion from occurring." Wei said optimistically.

Chen frowned, not liking this plan one bit due to the sheer misplaced enthusiasm involved as well as so many guiding assumptions when dealing with the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. There was also another factor of the entire plan that made Chen uneasy, one that could make any part of this operation the greatest mistake that East Asia would make in its history.

"But sir, what if Zeon is real. If they are-" Chen never got to finish his sentence as he was meet with a combination of sneers and disapproving groans from his fellow officers, with Wei responding to him with disapproval.

"Zeon being real? Don't tell me Admiral that just because you were the first to speak with this _Wilhelm Lutjens_ that you believe this fantasy garbage? The Coordinators have proven themselves to manipulate physics, but there is no possible evidence or reason that an entire nation of _Spacenoids_ transported themselves to our timeline, especially one with a history as unrealistic as the nonsense that they came up with. _Earth Federation_, a fiction that our people would never give consent to! It's revisionist garbage meant to mock the Alliance and its role in the Reconstruction War! What's next, Orb has Cthullu at their beck and call?

No Admiral, it is a fiction meant to hide their weaknesses as their systems failed before they could strike on the L4 cluster as they did the planet. The Coordinators have shown that they can stop nuclear fission, now anything is possible, especially the construction of hundreds of secret colonies and stealth fleets. You are to cease all notions of entertaining this fiction and face reality, that is an order!"

"Yes, Admiral." Chen said in a low and defeated tone while a few of his contemporaries snickered and made jokes about the man they thought of as foolish. One officer who Chen did not notice partaking in this was Admiral Shen, who throughout the conversation had kept a poker face and had not outwardly shifted one way or another on the argument.

"Unless anyone else would like to further indulge in ZAFT's fiction, then let us resume with the planning." Wei said.

The next couple of hours would see the finer details of the attack laid out, with Shen and his allies at first giving continued opposition, then shifting gears to giving complete control of the lunar defenses to Shen so that they would separate themselves completely from Wei and his gambit, something that Wei choose to unknowingly approve of. With a majority of officers in approval of the attack, Shen announced his departure to coordinate with the rest of the Alliance on lunar defense to formally distance himself from the current planning and thus Wei. After Shen left, a steady stream of officers followed until 2/3rd's remained when Wei gave his final approval, then later declaring Heaven's Fall.

Thus, the foundation for the Battle of Pezun was set into motion.  
**  
April 2nd, 70 CE. 0430 Colonial Standard. Solomon. Dozle Zabi POV**

In the previous day since landing within this new world, Dozle Zabi had been hard at work trying to organize the 2nd Fleet while also getting his bearings on just where the heck he was.

Conversations with his father and siblings at Zum City, talking to Admiral Lutjens at Pezun, along with a communique from some nation called Orb had revealed that Dozle was in some new reality called the Cosmic Era. It was a timeline where humanity never underwent a third world war, where Earth was never unified into an Earth Federation, where humanity barely left its mark on space and most people remained on Earth. Zeon Zum Deikun was a name that meant nothing to the people of the Cosmic Era. While Zeon may still be physically within the Earth sphere, in practically they were now above an alien world.

In addition to the tremendous revelation that they somehow had been transported across space and time, three and a half years to the past based on the Gregorian calendar, Dozle had also been experiencing...paranormal sensations. It sounded strange to say, but Dozle did not know any other way to describe what he had been experiencing in the past day.

First was his conversation with that ginger girl, one who freaked out and spouted nonsense about how he and Zenna were dead, then disappeared into thin air. At first Dozle had thought the event to be merely an illusion, yet throughout the day he felt some sort of strange sixth sense awakening within him. He first noticed something off when he a sensation akin to a bolt of lightning strike him, then seeing the image of Char Aznable, Garma's best friend, in clear agony and calling out for someone, then the image flickering out. Across the day hundreds, if not thousands of similar events occurred with Dozle seeing people across the fleet, mostly mobile suit pilots, flare up and then blimp out within moments. This occurred roughly at the same period that most of the fleet returned to consciousness, almost everybody except for the odd case within Solomon and every other ship by now returning to duty.

Another bizarre event that occurred to Dozle was how several hours after he had awaken and had a private dinner with Zenna. During the middle of their meal, Dozle had collapsed upon the floor from feeling a strong pressure on his body, as well as hearing what appeared to be millions of screams being directed at him. At first Dozle feared the worst, that he was either suffering from a heart attack at his young age or was somehow going through another event. Fortunately, this time he wasn't transported to another timeline and remained by Zenna's side, the screams slowly but surely fading away to distant whispers after several minutes. The Doctors had said that nothing was physically wrong with him, though this time they checked with the rest of the Solomon and the fleet and apparently a few other people, including Char Aznable, had experienced similar pains to him at the exact same time. It was also at that exact same moment that satellites picked up Europe and Africa going completely dark, an overall ominous sign.

Dozle had no idea what was going on and he hated every second of it. It felt like every second he was in some sort of twisted horror movie, one where supernatural events would strike him at any moment, yet instead of being haunted by some phantom, Dozle was instead haunted by what he felt to be the souls of his fellow man. It was fortunate for the young Zabi that Zenna was there to comfort him in these times, with him also tempting to reciprocate as Zenna had shown similar, though far weaker symptoms. Whatever was happening, Dozle could only hope that it would end soon.

At the moment Dozle was in his personal quarters in Solomon, speaking to Admiral Matthew King, the De Jure head of the 2nd Fleet though beneath Dozle thanks to his position as head of the Space Attack Force (Something Dozle had heavily mixed feelings on).

After he had awakened from sleeping with Zenna, getting some much needed rest, Dozle had checked upon the events of the new Earth sphere. Satellites picked up some sort of great battle in Earth orbit between presumably this new ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, while most of Earth had gone dark and lost all power. PLANT was still refusing to answer Solomon's transmissions, making Dozle fear that something terrible was happening that could be a threat to this new humanity and Zeon. He had initiated a conversation with Admiral King over whether or not they should send a small fleet to PLANT to force a first contact. They were almost at an agreement, when Zenna came in and alerted them that satellites had faintly picked up a fleet of 130 ZAFT ships making their way to Solomon.

Right now Dozle and King were trying to figure out if this was an offensive move or some sort of gunboat diplomacy. Zenna sat next to Dozle's side and occasionally gave her input, for earlier Dozle had given her the job of analyzing the limited information of the Cosmic Era sent to them by the East Asians to figure out who their new neighbors were.

"There is no question that this is anything but a hostile act Lord Dozle. PLANT has refused to respond to all of our communications on all channels so far, showing a complete disregard for diplomacy. By now most of the new Earth has completely lost all power, showing that they have access to some sort of extraordinary superweapon that can knock out the Earthside energy grid. Satellite imagery of the orbital battle site shows thousands of husks of Alliance ships. These Coordinators are showing themselves to be brutal warmongers that want to wipe out any presence within space that is not theirs. It doesn't matter if we are a nation that has not existed two days ago, they shall strike at us to secure the Earth sphere for themselves." King argued, a train of thought that Dozle had no evidence to immediately counter with.

"While I don't doubt that the destruction ZAFT has inflicted upon the Earth sphere is of a terrible scale Admiral, I don't think that ZAFT would go this far. By all accounts, their leader is a progressive who champions coexistence with the _Naturals, _simply wanting to genetic persecution to stop and for the PLANTs to be left alone. While they were most likely preparing for a retaliation of the nuking of their Junius Seven colony, I would think that they would have accomplished such a thing with wiping out Earth's energy, forcing Earth's nations to sue for peace. They didn't use nukes in their battle, and they haven't made a move to eradicate the near side lunar cities as well as the colonies of L1 and L4." Zenna reasoned, playing devil's advocate so that they would give ZAFT the benefit of the doubt and not launch an attack.

"From what I have read of their history Lady Zenna, even with the presumed bias of the East Asians, it sounds that the Coordinators had a far worse times than we Spacenoids. While the Spacenoids have been abused and oppressed since the beginning of the Federation, we never had to worry about being exterminated by Earth. We were willing to nuke and gas Sides 1, 2, and 4 to obtain independence. Who's to say ZAFT would take a further extreme and prevent any possibility of the Naturals presence in space." King said, bringing a chill to both Dozle and Zenna at the casual mention of the now defunct Prussian.

King had been one of the few officers who had been in on the draft, and while he was not opposed to the usage of nukes and gas, he had only wanted to do so in limited strategic strikes against individual colonies that were both heavily pro-Federation as well as key centers of economic and industrial power, not the mass obliteration of the Sides that Gihren had envisioned. One of the few positives that made Dozle easy about being in a new timeline is that Zeon was De Facto independent, and with no Federation there was no need for Zeon to have the blood of billions on its hands. However, Dozle feared that if either ZAFT or the Alliance were to attack Zeon, then Gihren would call for Prussian to be inflicted upon their space colonies. A far smaller loss of lives, though just as terrible.

Dozle took his right hand and lightly squeezed onto Zenna's right. A short look was shared between the two spouses, one that conveyed Dozle's assurance to Zenna that he would not allow for Gihren's nightmare to be inflicted upon this new world. It was a feeling that was passed both in body language, and unknowingly through a developing Newtype bond.

"My wife is right Admiral King in that we have nothing obvious that proves without a doubt that ZAFT shall attack, however, we shall not let our guard down and leave ourselves vulnerable to a surprise strike. As they say, it is better to be prepared for nothing than to be unprepared for the worst. While we will not cease our attempts to contact PLANT, at the same time the fleet shall take on a defensive position around Solomon with all ships and pilots ready for battle." Dozle said, King showing his satisfaction towards his stance with a slight smile over the monitor.

"I agree with your sentiment Lord Dozle. I would suggest that we have a conference with the admiralty within the hour in order to come up with a basic order of battle." King said, with Dozle nodding.

"It would also be quite prudent if we ask father for both reinforcements from the home fleet and a supply convoy to restock Solomon. Position them between L2 and L5 so that way it won't alert ZAFT, but they'll still be in a position to aid us should a battle commence and provide relief for the base and any damaged ships in the aftermath." Zenna propositioned.

Just as Dozle had felt many times before, he was thankful that he had married such a brilliant and amazing woman. Dozle showed this by lightly kissing Zenna on the cheek, flustering Zenna slightly while eliciting a warm chuckle from King.

"You're right Zenna. They still have hundreds of ships that we have no track of, and it wouldn't hurt to reinforce Solomon in a victory, or launch a strike on those hourglasses in the worst case scenario." Dozle said, causing a pink hue to grow slightly more on Zenna's face at the praise.

"If that is all, with your approval then Lord Dozle, I would like for us to converse with the rest of the Admiralty at...uh 0530." King said, momentarily lapsing due to Zeon being forced to switch to this new colonial standard as their military time, causing nearly half a day to be wound back on the clock, something that would most likely mess up many a Spacenoid's sleep cyle for the next couple of days.

"Of course Admiral." Dozle responded.

King then saluted and was about to cut off the call, only to remember something and then continue. "Lord Dozle, if a battle does commence, you won't go out in your custom Zaku-II would you?" King asked, slight apprehension on his face at what he felt was great foolishness on his superior leading from the front in a mobile suit.

"Of course! My men need me to fight alongside them and so I must join the sortie." Dozle exclaimed, causing worry to start forming within Zenna over her husband leaving the safety of Solomon.

"Dozle..." Zenna warned only for King to beat her to the punch.

"Lord Dozle, while your ability as a Zaku pilot is no doubt among the greatest within all the fleet, and I would not object if this were a Federation fleet, we are facing a fleet of unknown technological ability, crewed by supermen of genius intellect and Olympic strength, and we are facing an enemy with mobile suits, of which we have no data to compare if the Zaku is superior." King argued.

"But we outnumber them 10 to 1, surely any battle will be a quick victory? This timeline hasn't even discovered Minovsky physics! With the usage of particles on the battlefield they will be helpless." Dozle countered.

"Once again, if this was a Federation fleet of 130 Magellans and Salamis' then I would agree. However, this is a fleet that is compose of _superhumans_ with a superweapon within their arsenal that was able to knock out the Earth's energy grid, which from what little information we know is reliant on nuclear fission. There are simply too many unknowns for this battle for you to risk your life within a Zaku, even with the Royal Guard at your side. While you would surely kill a couple of ships and maybe a dozen mobile suits, we have thousands of pilots who are ready and able to do the same job." King said.

"Please Dozle, Admiral King is right, we simply don't know who we would be fighting against for you to risk your life in a Zaku, especially if their mobile suit is superior. What the fleet needs is for their commanding officer and prince to lead them in a secure position to dictate both tactics and strategy during the battle. There is no dishonor staying at Solomon and no one would think any less of you." Zenna pleaded.

"If anything Lord Dozle, most of the Admiralty and Captains would expect you to lead from Solomon and would be shocked to hear you go into battle." King concurred.

This angered Dozle slightly, "This isn't some hiss fit for glory, I don't care if I don't get a single kill so long as I share the same hardships as my men. It's the principle of duty! I can't just-"Dozle said, about to continue before the words of the mystery girl from earlier.

_"You're dead! You were killed by Amuro Ray on Christmas Eve at the Battle of Solomon. I saw the footage, I watched you die."_

While such a statement was false, the girl before him had uttered it with the upmost conviction, that what she saw was the truth and that seeing Dozle alive was just outright impossible. Not only this, but she said it in the past tense, meaning that in some Christmas in the future, Dozle had died in a battle for Solomon, slain by some man named Amuro Ray. To her this was most likely history, a statement just as equal as stating that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor or that the Nazis lost Stalingard.

While Dozle wanted to believe it was nothing more than a delusion, the events of the past day with his new and strange sixth sense, as well as the reality that they were now in the past in a different timeline, really made anything possible. So could that girl have been from the future? A future where Dozle had died in a war?

"Dozle, are you alright?" Dozle's train of thought was broken by his wife's gentle and heavenly voice, Zenna shaking him to try to get him to focus once more. Dozle grimaced slightly as he probably worried Zenna by making her think he was having another episode.

"I'm fine Zenna, I was just thinking...and you two are both right. It would be foolish of me to risk my life without concrete information on our hypothetical enemies. I'll stay in Solomon and take command." Dozle said, surprising both Zenna and King as they were sure they expected a fierce fight from Dozle.

"Well then, I'll take my leave Lord Dozle." King said, giving off a salute and then cutting off their exchange, Dozle's computer monitor returning to its normal black screen.

"Dozle, are you okay?" Zenna asked with great concern. Dozle had never given her the full details of his exchange with the girl earlier, merely stating vaguely that he was seeing things.

Dozle got out of his chair and went behind Zenna's, wrapping her body in great warmth and comfort to help calm her. "I am my love, it's just...later on after we deal with this unknown fleet, I would like to speak in private with you on something I experienced earlier. It is nothing of immediate concern, just trust me for know and stay at my side when the confrontation starts."

Zenna settled back into Dozle's embrace, deciding to trust her spouse. "Okay, just please promise to be open and not hide anything from me."

"I promise." Dozle said, placing a light kiss on Zenna's temple. "We'll get through this crazy world my love, one way or another." After sharing a small exchange of kisses to calm both Zabis down, Dozle called Shin and Gato into his quarters. If he wasn't going to head personally into battle, then his guard and two of the best pilots he knew would take his place and bring victory to Zeon.

Such was how the White Wolf and Blue Tiger would make their legendary debuts.  
**  
April 2nd, 70 CE. 1100 Colonial Standard. ZAFT ****_Georges Danton_****. Talia Gladys POV**

When Talia had reported the existence of the stealth fleet back to the homeland, she should have known that there would be a good chance that she would enter into battle against it. The sending of a majority fo the fleet to Uroboros along with the ships at Lorentz made the probability quite high. Whether or not her ship simply had the luck of the draw, or if it was specifically chosen as one of the first to report the asteroid and its fleet, she had no idea.

Whatever the case, here and now Talia and the dozens of ZAFT personnel on her command were about to head into battle against the Alliance's new stealth fleet.

The fantastic results of Operation Uroboros with the insane 50 to 1 kill count ratio helped to set Talia's mind at ease for the coming operation. Stealth tech or not, the new ships would be worthless when they were depowered and stuck dead in space with the N-Jammer.

As for the unknown mobile suits, Talia hoped that whatever similarities that it had to the GINN were only physical and that the enemy cyclops' were of an inferior design, not to mention operated by inferior Natural pilots who until the past six weeks most likely had no experience in any kind of mecha.

Yes, the battle would go well with ZAFT capturing a new asteroid and the threat of these stealth fleets extinguished, while Talia would go home to her son William, staying by his side after the war ended within a month or two after the Alliance signs a treaty.

When they were ten minutes away from the operation time, Talia began firing orders. "Deploy all mobile suits. Keep the Santiago team within a five kilometer radius of the ship. McKinley and her men have to go ahead to proceed on twenty-five kilometers ahead of us and wait for operational time to head on the offensive." Talia said, her CIC officer relaying her orders.

Among ZAFT captains, Talia was considered a rather conservative leader due to her tactical style relying on half of her ship's mobile suits to stay and hug the ship while the other half engaged the enemy and only fired upon targets of weakness rather than attacking full in strength. Talia liked to work best in groups with other ships and followed orders to a letter though she rarely took the initiative in battle. It was traits like these that would most likely keep her in place as a Blackcoat, something Talia was perfectly okay with as she had no higher ambition at the moment.

Hector also decided to join in the fray, "What's the nearest ship formation with the highest density?" He asked, trying to find a target for the _Danton_ to fire upon.

Greencoat Helen Mao responded, "Sir that would be a pocket of four cruisers 23 degrees off of starboard and nine hundred klicks and closing." She said.

Without any knowledge of the names of the new stealth classes, ZAFT had divided them into simple call-signs. The great red ships were dreadnoughts, the middle greens were cruisers, and the small reds were frigates. Since there were none of the Alliance's traditional ships present, then there wouldn't be any confusion with say a Drake or Nelson.

"Good, then aim all turrets on those four and fire when Admiral Fukuyama gives the order." Hector said.

"Also try to find three more pockets that we can aim towards after their destruction. In battle you can never pause or have a moment's rest." Talia added, with Hector nodding along.

Much like Uroboros, Midway had the fleet spread apart as far as possible to make sure the N-Jammer's effect was far and wide. This meant that the _Danton_ was alone in their immediate struggles, and outside of some minor cooperation from nearby ships and suits, they could only rely on themselves to confront the great fleet before them. A seemingly more difficult effort than Uroboros as unlike the previous operation, this fleet's commander choose to spread out their forces horizontally with great space between them, most likely due to data from the Alliance survivors of the battle.

For the next two minutes Talia continued to plan with Hector on how to meet other nearby ships or respond in case of being fired upon, until their session was broken upon by the _Danton's_ weapons officer, Greencoat Tyrone Maxwell. "Captain, something's wrong with the visuals. I don't know how to explain it, but the image is...foggy and there's some minor distortion." Tyrone said.

Talia frowned at the weird information while Hector floated out of his XO chair and towards Tyrone to personally verify his statement. After typing various commands on the console, Hector let off a low grunt. "He's right Captain, not only is visual breaking apart, but it appears that the radar of the enemy ships is flickering in and out."

"Flickering?" Talia questioned.

"Yes flickering. It's not like with the N-Jammers were radar simply can't pick up anything outside of a short radius, it's flickering off and on even though at this range and without the N-Jammers on it should still be in position. It's like...it's like a fishing bobber that's going up and down the water, that's the closet thing I can compare it to." Hector said with slight apprehension.

"Tyrone, is there something wrong with the computers?" Talia said with great worry. If there was a screwup in either the hardware or software then that could mean the difference between life and death.

"Nothing ma'am. I triple checked before I informed you, and everything appears to be working 100%."

"Have any nearby ships turned on their N-Jammers?" Talia asked. Fukuyuma's plan was to have the N-Jammer's turned off a minute until operation then have them turned on to trap the stealth fleet. It was to give the Alliance the impression that the N-Jammers were of limited stock on not on every ship.

"No ma'am, everyone is following protocol." Said Helen.

This caused Talia to frown further, with a strong feeling in her gut telling her that something was off, but she just couldn't understand what.

"Tyrone, keep on trying to find a bug within the systems until 60 seconds from operation time. Order the McKinley team to come back and stay in escort formation. We'll have the Danton's weapons fire first and if they can't make a clean mark then we'll have the GINN's protect the ship and improvise from there."

The Afro-British Greencoat applied in an affirmative, trying desperately to correct the problem so that his ship wouldn't be a sitting duck. From there an great unease fell over the bridge, a few thinking it was an ill omen to come.

For the next three minutes the ship continued as normal, until Helen broke the peace, "Captain, we're receiving a transmission from the asteroid, it's directed at the entire fleet, I'm sending visual to the bridge." Helen said, a large monitor dropping from the ceiling in response to play the message.

"Who knows, maybe they're scared shitless and offering their surrender?" Hector said crassly, generating a light laugh and grin from Talia and most of the bridge crew.

_'If only.'_ Such an action would be the wisest and most ideal outcome of this battle. Instead of letting hundreds of thousands of their men die in battle, the enemy commander would wisely avoid bloodshed and concede defeat, granting ZAFT the victory as a show of where this war was headed while no families had to lose their loved ones.

The image brought upon the screen showed a figure that brought a great amount of surprise and shock to the Danton's bridge.

To say that the man upon the screen was a behemoth would be quite the understatement. He seemed to be literally chewing the scenery as his body was covering the near entirety of the camera, leaving very little of the background for the ship to observe. He was not large in fat however, rather what seemed to be a gigantic bone structure and muscle with a wide shoulders and torso. He also sported a very menacing appearance with a long ugly face filled with scars from the chin to forehead. Outside of the scars his most noticeable feature was a gray mullet.

It wasn't the body of this unknown man that was the strangest thing about him, rather the uniform that he was wearing. Unlike the traditional blue, white, gray of the Big Three, the man's uniform was bright green, though considerably lighter than the dark green of South Africa. It was far removed from traditional Cosmic Era uniforms with the only distinguishing markings being a set of golden wings on his red collar and an unusual bird-like insignia that was displayed proudly on his chest. He also sported strange golden spikes as epaulets on both of his shoulders.

To Talia, the uniform appeared to be either that of a Fascist from the 20th century, or derivative from some cliche science fiction. The former was a greatly disturbing idea, while the latter was more comedic. Talia had no idea how right she was on the first guess.

"_Attention ZAFT vessels, I am Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, commanding officer of the Solomon asteroid Base and of the 2nd fleet currently stationed here. For the previous day I have been attempting to contact both your fleets and PLANT in desperation, yet you have ignored my calls. I wish to send you one last message in the hopes of avoiding bloodshed, though I warn you it is a tale that would seem highly ludicrous upon first hearing._" _Dozle Zab_i said.

"What does he mean by attempting to contact the PLANTs?" Hector asked Talia in a low whisper.

She shrugged her shoulders in response, "I have no idea. Whatever it is the Supreme Council probably dealt with it." Talia said, though the wording of such a phrase brought great unease to Talia and the greater bridge.

"_My men and I are not aligned with the Earth Alliance or its member-states, the Atlantic Federation, Eurasia, East Asia, or South Africa. Rather we are members of the Space Force of the Principality of Zeon. Such a term is most likely incredibly alien to your ears, that is because in many aspects it is. For you see, over twenty-four hours ago my father, our great Sovereign Degwin Sodo Zabi, declared our nation's independence from the Earth Federation, on October 1st, Universal Century 0078._"

The bridge of the _Danton_ got so silent that you could hear a pin drop. What was supposed to be a simple operation was quickly unraveling into some bizarre twilight zone.

_'What the hell is he talking about? Is this some sort of twisted distraction to get his men ready for battle?'_ Talia thought gloomy.

"_When my father declared independence, the Principality, a collection of several hundred colonies within L2, the far side lunar cities, Solomon, along with the Pezun base and its fleet in L4, were somehow transported across space and time to this timeline called the Cosmic Era, which by the Gregorian calendar is three and a half years from where we came from._

_In our timeline called the Universal Century, a third world war broke out which unified the world into the Earth Federation, with the Federation beginning a great campaign of colonization to send most of humanity to space to relieve the overhyped environmental burdens on Earth. By 0078, there were nine billion of us Spacenoids who resided in great colonies within the Lagrange point, the Principality of Zeon, of which two billion reside in Lagrange 2, is a great nation that was founded by its namesake, Zeon Zum Deikun as a nation to uplift ourselves form the tyranny of Earth and begin new lives where we shall rule ourselves and spread throughout the stars in a new age of enlightenment for mankind._

_Outside of the heavy political differences that came within a one world government, there are many societal differences between the Universal Century and the Cosmic Era. The first of which is that there was never a George Glenn and as such there is no concept of Coordination. While gene therapy still exists and is legal, it has never gone so radial in enhancements and modifications as your people currently have. There are no Coordinators in Zeon, only your so-called Naturals. Despite our genetic differences, we of Zeon feel sympathy to your plight as we both share years of suffering brought against us by an Earthborn elite. While we have no wish to actively intervene in your war of independence, my father has expressed a desire for cordial diplomatic relations to be created between Zeon and PLANT so that we may coexist within the Earth sphere._"

The information that Dozle Zabi was expressing continued to cause Talia's blood to freeze til it was practically the Arctic. Not only did this man claim to be from another timeline, but he claimed to be from a world where there was no such thing as Coordinators? Where the majority of humanity existed in space instead of the bare one percent that were currently within the Earth sphere.

"This guy is the biggest bullshiter that I've ever heard. I've seen student films with better writing than the nonsense he's spouting." Hector growled right next to her. Talia wanted to agree with him, though there was a small instinct at the back of her brain that kept nagging her, on what if everything this Dozle was saying was right and not some desperate fiction created by the Alliance.

_'Are we really making first contact with a nation from another world?'_ Talia asked herself.

"_We have already initiated contact with East Asia and Orb with my family attempting to make general contact with the rest of the Earth sphere. Now that we are free from the tyranny and oppression of the Earth Federation, we have no wish for conflict with our new neighbors and simply wish for our sovereignty and freedom to be respected. I would like to request that diplomats be sent from your PLANT council so that we can establish relations and a long lasting peace_-"

"Captain, Admiral Fukuyuma sent us a general message of the fleet. It says that the message playing before us is nothing more than a cheap Alliance deception to avoid the N-Jammer and launch an early strike. All N-Jammers are to be activated immediately and for ZAFT vessels and mobile suits to attack once the N-Jammer is online." Helen interrupted, ending any hope of a peaceful exchange with this "Zeon."

Talia sighed in her chair. She knew that the Admirals orders were factually correct and that the idea of a nation of space colonies being transported across time and space was impossible, though _what if it were true_? This meant that ZAFT was about to fire on a neutral nation.

_'No, it's fake, it has to be.' _Talia assured herself. She couldn't disobey orders on hunches and maybes. There was no hard evidence to this man's claims, it was an Alliance trick, it had to be.

"Tyrone, fire on the targeted enemy cruisers, right after the volley the N-Jammer shall be turned on and we shall head into battle." Talia ordered, the bridge and the greater ship heading into combat positions.

Tyrone did as instructed and fired away the Laurasia-class' variety of railguns and cannons. Due to the then unknown Minovsky density, Tyrone's shots were not entirely on the mark. Two Musai's were not hit, one was lightly scathed, though the fourth was hit dead center with most of its beam turrets being destroyed.

With the firing of hundreds of other beams, rails, and shells racing across lines to hit the Zeon ships; along with the deployment of dozens of GINN's who shot into battle to meet the Zaku, the Battle of Solomon had begun.

_"I've always found it to be the greatest yet most tragic irony in that Zeon Zum Deikun professed Newtypes as being people who shall understand one another without misconceptions. However, Zeon's entrance into the Cosmic Era, the April Fools Miracle which acted as the awakening for tens of millions of Newtypes, would begin with two bloody battles based off of misunderstanding, both of which laid the foundation for our modern solar system."- I Newtype, by Haman Karn. CE 96._

**A/N: First off we have the immediate reaction of the Alliance to the N-Jammers, and them unfortunately assuming that Zeon as a whole is merely a ZAFT plot, thus leading to the Alliance along with ZAFT commencing first strikes on Zeon. In the Alliance's defense, when you witness the Coordinators prevent the splitting of the atom, a scientific impossibility that proves their superior intelligence, it's not so unbelievable that the colonies and fleets that popped into existence are theirs versus the extraordinary concept of dimensional travel. Like Haman said in the end of the chapter, the Newtype Age shall begin with great and tragic misunderstandings.**

**Within the East Asian meeting, I also wanted to present some of the big players that will be important in the near future as well as how the East Asian military as a whole conducts itself, something which features heavy internal politicking reminiscent of the PRC. Like I said earlier, my interpretation of East Asia is a reverse Co-Prosperity sphere so it definitely isn't pretty, but I don't want to completely vilify them as there are definitely good men like Chen and Jun who just want to serve their country and just have crappy superiors like the Earth Federation. Technically in canon East Asia is morally superior to the Atlantic Federation, and the differences between them and the rest of the Alliance and Cosmic Era nations will definitely be highlighted in later chapters, with the good and bad of East Asia and other nations on full display.**

**Next we have Dozle conversing with Admiral Matthew King, an OC of mine, and how they plan to respond to the ZAFT fleet. We also have instances of Dozle's growing Newtype potential displayed along with the first effects of his conversation with Mineva, him deciding not to go out in his Zaku-II. This doesn't mean that Dozle has become cowardly or that he'll never go out into battle, rather now he knows that in some future **_**he would die**_**and as such he wants to play it safe against an unknown force of superhumans with mobile suits and an anti-nuclear superweapon. In the future when he has a greater understanding of ZAFT and the Alliance, there's greater potential for him to ride out into battle.**

**Lastly we have Talia's thoughts as she enters into battle and how things spiraled rapidly out of a hopefully peaceful first contact to a bloody one. The beginning of next chapter will show why Fukuyuma ordered an attack on Zeon first. For now a state of war exists between Zeon and ZAFT, with the first MS on MS battle about to commence.**

**I apologize for what I am about to do, but I must leave you guys on a light cliffhanger as I switch my attention back to Gihren's Glory. I will pump out three chapters for there and then after Chapter 43 right the next update which shall be solely focused on the Battle of Solomon. No matter what, I hope to write it before the year's end.**

**Thanks for reading everyone and stay tuned for more!**


	10. Battle of Solomon

**April 2nd, 70 CE. ZAFT **_**Yamaga Soko**_**.**

To understand how the tragedy of the Battle of Solomon took place, it is important to understand the man who directly caused it, ZAFT Whitecoat Keishiro Fukuyuma.

Keishiro Fukuyuma was a man filled with great personal anger and hatred caused by a long life of tragedy. Originally born in Japan, his parents were collaborators of the East Asian government who were among the few native elites of the islands after its annexation into Japan. Wanting their offspring to have the same level of success in life as George Glenn, the Fukuyuma's genetically modified Keishiro and his younger brother Haru to become a Coordinators. At first life was good for the family as they prospered in the aftermath of the Reconstruction with Keishiro being a prominent stock broker in Beijing, while his younger brother Haru became a simple farmer, enjoying the peace of the Japanese countryside to the urban lifestyle that dominated East Asia.

This all changed in the forties and fifties as anti-Coordinator sentiment began to rise tremendously within East Asia, only the Atlantic Federation acted as a worse nation for Coordinators to live. After the S2 outbreak, associates of Keishiro who were jealous of the Coordinator's financial wits and success used their political connections to have Keishiro be deported to PLANT as a subversive agent of the state who was manipulating corporations for his own personal benefit. What was even worse was how Keishiro's parents were exiled to the L4 ghettos due to them being held as responsible for Keishiro's "dissent" for causing his Coordination. Keishiro would never see his parents again, both dying in a violent altercation with the garrisons in 61 CE. The only bright spot of this whole episode would be Haru voluntarily moving to PLANT with Keishiro to support his only remaining blood.

As the years went by in PLANT, Keishiro became increasingly hateful of the Naturals who had exiled him to space, joining the Zodiac Alliance and becoming one of the first leaders of ZAFT within Patrick Zala's wing. Keishiro taught Coordinators to defend themselves with force and on occasion would lead violent attacks on UN peacekeepers who occupied PLANT until 58. As Keishiro was radicalized, his brother Haru remained a rather mild individual, believing much like Siegel Clyne that a peaceful coexistence could be maintained with the Naturals.

Over time the two brother's relationship strained with Keishiro delving himself further into developing ZAFT while Haru lived a quiet life in Junius Seven as a farmer. Tensions would climax in New Years of 70 CE where a disagreement over the possibility of ZAFT conducting a war with the sponsor nations concluded with Keishiro storming out of Haru's residence and cursing his "Natural lover" brother.

For the next six weeks Keishiro refused to speak with Haru despite his younger brothers attempt to speak with him. Then Bloody Valentine happened, the Alliance within an instant taking away Keishiro's younger brother along with his sister in-law and niece, with Keishiro never apologizing for his actions, he believed that Haru died with the impression of his brother hating him.

The immense grief and guilt over his brother's death sent Keishiro into a short depression, only for his sorrow to turn into raw hatred and anger for the Naturals that murdered his last remaining kin. Keishiro swore that he would get justice for Haru and ensure that no Coordinator would ever be oppressed by the backwards Naturals ever again.

When Keishiro got the assignment to command the fleet for Operation Midnight he was ecstatic. Operation Uroboros proved the supremacy of Coordinators with the N-Jammer dealing apocalyptic strikes on the battlefield. Keishiro resolved that he would wipe out the stealth fleet and conquer their asteroid to be used by ZAFT, all in the name of his brother's memory.

When Dozle Zabi transmitted a communication to the ZAFT fleet, Keishiro was at first confused and for a short period scared that this was actually a neutral third party that they were confronting, only for his feelings to dive into rage. In Keishiro's mind, the Alliance dared to craft some bogus fiction about their stealth fleet being from another world where they were oppressed space colonists. To top this fiction off with a grave insult, they claimed that this world had no Coordinators, a paradise for Blue Cosmos and a goal they actively pursued through genetic cleansing on Earth.

For Keishiro this was one of the most disgusting actions that the Alliance could ever perform, a slap in the face on the victims of Junius Seven like his brother. Not once did the whitecoat ever consider that Dozle Zabi was telling the truth, that he really was a man from another world who wished to initiate peaceful first contact.

Suffering from years of persecution, Keishiro Fukuyuma gave the order to fire on the Solomon fleet in an act that he saw as a righteous vengeance for the wrongs inflicted upon all Coordinators. Keishiro Fukuyuma did not fire upon an Alliance fleet, instead he fired upon the Principality of Zeon, an act that would cement Fukuyuma in eternal infamy and greatly alter Zeon's destiny.

**Solomon. Dozle Zabi.**

"DAMMIT!" Roared Dozle Zabi, stomping his right foot on the ground in a fit which caused a low vibration to carry through the metal floor. While Dozle Zabi was a proud patriot who would gladly wage war in service of Zeon, he was also a man who wanted all who served under him to return to their homes and families alive. If a peaceful first contact could be made then that would be the greatest victory for Dozle.

Dozle had done everything he could to clearly state who he was, what Zeon as a nation was, and the incredible circumstances that led them to this new timeline. He had not been vague in the entirety of his dialogue and repeatedly made clear Zeon's desire for peace with PLANT and to establish diplomatic relations.

Despite his behavior, the ZAFT fleet in front of him either didn't believe him or just didn't care and opened fire upon the fleet. On Solomon's gigantic monitors in the command center, Dozle had watched as a couple dozen ships exploded instantly from contact with conventional and beam weaponry. His eyes swelled with tears at the thought of his failure and thousands of sons and daughter of Zeon dying in seconds.

_'No, I didn't fail them, those superhuman scum murdered them for no reason!'_ Dozle thought, anger eliminating his grief.

He had done everything by the book in initiating contact. There were hundreds of thousands of witnesses who could testify that his actions were benign and Zeon showed no aggression in the initial confrontation. All the blood that would be shed today was on ZAFT's hands, not his.

"If the Coordinators want to dig their own grave then we shall gladly help them on their way to hell!" Dozle shouted to all within the command center. Various shouts of agreement met his words.

"Transmit to all ships that Plan 6 shall commence. The fleet shall be divided into taskforces Alpha through Zeta with battlefield command falling to their respective admirals. ZAFT may have started this war, but we shall sure as hell finish it. Sieg Zeon!"

"SIEG ZEON!"

**MS-06C Zaku-II. Char Aznable.**

There were many times in the past couple of years where Char Aznable wondered if the path he was taking on his quest for justice was the right one. While he knew that his goal of eliminating the Zabis was righteous, there were moments where he wondered if serving as a mobile suit pilot for the Principality was really the best method. Would it not be better if he gave his services to the Federation and struck down the Zabis as a servant of their most hated enemies instead of in the public service to the Zabis?

Thoughts like those were quick and fleeting. While Char hated the Zabi family with a burning passion, he had no love for the rotten Federation that exiled a majority of humanity to the colonies to suffer lives of poverty and stagnation. It was a great monolith that his father fought against to his dying breath. The existence of Degwin and his foul spawn did not erase the evils of Earth.

As such, Char vowed to himself that his duty as a mobile suit pilot was never to the Principality or the Zabi family, rather to the nation of Zeon and its people. After all, once he eliminated the Zabis someone would need to take the reigns of power and guide Side 3 back to the guiding light of Contolism. It was only after every Zabi drew their last breath that Char Aznable would die and Casval Rem Deikun would return to reclaim his father's legacy.

So what if he killed in the Principality's wars? He was doing such deeds as a son of Zeon, both his father and the nation. Nothing he did as a pilot was in service to Degwin the traitorous snake.

Such sentiments were present currently as Char rode off to battle against the mysterious ZAFT that he had just learned of hours ago, a military that was serviced entirely by superhumans created through genetic augmentation.

For the first time since his orientation at the Academy, Char felt truly proud to be a pilot of Zeon. This ZAFT had committed an unwarranted act of aggression and killed thousands of his brothers and sisters in arms, their deathly cries still ringing in Char's soul. Today Char would fight a righteous battle to protect Zeon from a superhuman menace, a duty he gladly enjoyed.

Char began this duty by firing three rounds from Denim's anti-ship rifle that he had borrowed from the Chief Petty Officer for the initial volley. With his Newtype potential soaring to new heights, Char could feel himself surging with greater powers that could possibly be on Lalah's level. This allowed him to launch a psychic probe that gave him a rough understanding of the schematics of the ZAFT ships, and with it came their weak spots.

Wanting to start off his part with a bang, Char fired the first two rounds towards the bridge of a blue destroyer, this completely shredded the bridge and killed most of the destroyer's officers.

Char's third round was aimed towards the hanger entrance with a large hole tearing into the opening with the catapult bearing great scars, though it was still operational for all intense and purposes.

To Char's great disappointment, his shots didn't tear the destroyer apart and cause a collapse of the hull as simulations had shown with Federation Magellans and Salamis'. This meant that either this new universe used stronger materials, or ZAFT was just really good at engineering their ships. It made sense for a military of superhumans, not to mention their designs followed Zeon's philosophy of practicality in space combat versus the Federation who bizarrely modeled all of their ships off of the wet navies of the Second World War. It was a sign that showed how the Federation's souls still clung to Earth's gravity, while the Spacenoids of Zeon progressed forward in the march of time, free in the great void of space.

_'If the anti-ship rifle is this effective than my bazooka will hardly make a difference.'_ Char grimaced.

Denim had offered his rifle to his commanding officer before the battle as there were no guarantees who the armor of the enemy mobile suits would hold up and Denim thought it would be of much better use to his superior officer. Char had declined though by stating that he preferred to stick to reliable methods with his favored bazooka combat. Now he had to change his plans on the fly.

Handing the rifle back to Denim, Char gave a new series of orders.

"Denim, you take command of the squad and focus on eliminating this destroyer. I'll take care of the MS escorts and then proceed to continue the diversion on my own." Char said. While he wanted to continue onward and tear a hole through the enemy fleet, this would be a good opportunity to test the Coordinator's MS and see if they were superior to the Zaku or not. This would allow Char to decide whether he should play it safe or employ his usual sense of high risk.

"Lieutenant, are you sure you should go alone?" Denim asked with great worry.

"I can handle it by myself." Char replied, using his tone to indicate the matter was final with Denim blurting a affirmative. While Char had grown to become rather fond of the pilots who served under him, they were nowhere near his league and Char couldn't sense any recently developed Newtype potential in them. They would only slow him down in combat, something that Denim fortunately agreed upon.

With no objections, Char kicked his verniers into full thrust and surged onto the battlefield with his soon-to-be infamous triple speed. Using his Newtype perception to allow him to act clearly in short time, Char switched to his bazooka and fired a round towards the destroyer's front turret, destroying it completely and allowing his mean to have an easier time in eliminating the ship.

Having moved past the destroyer in a flash, Char began to circle back around, turning his comms on an open channel as he did so.

"Is that all you superhumans can dish out? Clearly your genetics mean nothing if us _Naturals_ can take our your ship in a couple of shots." Char said with artificial malice laced in his voice. This statement was not due to any real hatred of Char, rather as an attempt to rile up the enemy and get them to charge at him recklessly, Char using his limited and recently learned knowledge of the Cosmic Era to mock them.

Thanks to his ignorance of how deep the Coordinator-Natural divide had become, Char had no idea of how his taunt was very effective to say the least. It caused three GINN's to charge at the red Zaku while the other three had to deal with Denim's squad as well as incoming fire from a couple dozen Musais and Chivvays.

Using his Newtype senses to guide him, Char fired two shots from his bazooka. The first hit the lead GINN dead center near the cockpit, heavily damaging the chasis and threatening the pilot to be sucked into space. The GINN attempted to retreat to the back while also moving rightward so that his comrades could cover for him, though unfortunately for the Coordinator Char had fired his second shot with his Newtype foresight, hitting the cockpit dead on and killing the Coordinator instantly, causing the GINN to collapse.

The sight of their comrade being killed by a Natural mobile suit filled the other two GINN's with rage and caused them to fire their machine guns wildly to Char along with a small collection of rockets.

Pushing his acceleration to its limits, Char raced towards the GINNs. However, instead of charging head on or firing at them, Char proceeded to fly around them in circles akin to a dance. This only served to further enrage the Coordinators with Char filing the last round of his magazine towards the burning destroyer as more fuel to the fire.

Unfortunately for them, this was precisely what Char was planning. For after a while they had to stop and reload, and in those precious moments of weakness, Char launched his attack.

Coming forward at the GINN's in a style that would soon gain infamy as "Char's Charge", Char burst through the battlefield in a straight line, aiming for the center of a GINN and firing two shots. While the second GINN was not destroyed completely like his partner, the suit was heavily crippled with its head and left arm knocked off while severe pressure caved in the cockpit area.

The third GINN attempted to life its heavy blade to strike Char at melee, Char had already accounted for this. After firing his two rounds, Char had placed the bazooka on his Zaku's back and then activated his heat hawk. When he was more than halfway in closing the distance, Char leaned back and kicked the vernier thrusters on his Zaku's feet. This forced caused Char to gradually slow his acceleration until he was in close contact with the third GINN.

While the remaining GINN attempted to defend himself with a swing, Char had countered with a perry, the heat hawk slightly burning the blade with the heavy struggling to keep up. This allowed Char to launch a cracker barrel at point blank to the GINN, with him pushing his verniers to accelerate upward. The GINN was caught completely by surprise and flinched with damage to the arms, letting go of its heavy blade.

This gave Char an opening with him reversing his suit's position in a 180 and launching himself at the GINN. He raised his heat hawk above his ZAKU, and used it to slice the GINN right down the center, killing the pilot by turning him into charred bits.

A Newtype flash kicked in for Char and he turned his Zaku around to focus on the second GINN, which had regained its machine gun and fired at Char. Fortunately for him, the GINN's aim was wildly off course due to the reliance on the secondary camera which was being distorted due to the increasing Minovsky density on the battlefield.

Dodging the incoming rounds, Char moved forward with his Zaku and slashed the GINN in a diagnol manner from the top left, destroying the third suit and pushing Char halfway to becoming an ace.

Char looked to his men and smiled when he saw that not only did all of them survive, but they had killed the enemy mobile suits and the destroyer had now been completely killed.

Satisfied that his subordinates were okay for now, Char made his way to a large piece of debris from the destroyer and use it as a kickoff point to launch himself towards ZAFT lines at three times normal speed.

Thus began the debut of the Red Comet in the Cosmic Era. While his first battle would be greatly different from his intended descent into legend that he was destined for at Loum, it was just as glorious.

**MS-06C Zaku II. Miguel Gaia.**

_'Now this is a damn good war!'_ Gaia thought, grinning wildly as he raced across the battlefield with his best friends and teammates.

While Gaia knew that there was a high likelihood of a war breaking out with the Earth Federation, there was no excitement for him in the potential of conflict since he knew that with the Zaku, Zeon would obliterate the Federation's Space Force and win the war within a week or two. Not that it was a _bad thing_ persay as a quick and total victory with few casualties was always the best case for Zeon, but such a war would prevent the Black Tri-Stars from earning any hard glory in the battle or pushing themselves to the limit.

Such a scenario was one that was underway right now as Zeon had entered into conflict with this ZAFT, not only the only military in this new timeline with mobile suits, but made of superhumans as well. A strong performance here would push the Tri-Stars to the pinnacle of the MS corps and make them the undeniable kings of the MS corps.

When they set off into battle, the Tri-Stars settled on a strategy of primarily focusing on eliminating the enemy ships as a first and moving on the mobile suits second. While Gaia would love to go into individual combat against these Zaku ripoffs, the officer in him knew that the best way for Zeon to use its numerical superiority was to eliminate the ships in quick fashion and swarm the surviving suits with thousands of Zakus. This would allow for a quick and relatively painless victory while conferring total destruction upon the enemy.

This strategy had been successful so far with the Tri-Stars eliminating a destroyer, now moving onto one of the many green frigates that made up the majority of the enemy.

The Tri-Stars darted across the battlefield towards their prey, using their verniers to make adjustments to their position every five seconds so that they would not be stuck on a linear course for the enemy to fire upon them.

They managed to reach the frigate quickly and with good fortune there were no mobile suits currently acting as escort, this allowed the Tri-Stars to get to quick work.

Ortega made the opening volley by firing each round in his bazooka's magazine towards the top turrets of the frigate, each round hitting dead center due to his emerging Newtype abilities allowing him to guide the shots with spatial awareness.

With the heavy hitters of the frigate being quickly eliminated, Gaia used his anti-ship rifle to fire two shots towards the bridge, hitting its target and tearing apart most of the front end of the frigate, as a consequence also eliminating the forward railguns as a consequence.

His comrades shots allowed Mash to get the opening he needed to come in close to the frigate, using his titanic custom heat hawk to slice the frigate's hangar bay into dozens of pieces.

With a few more shots from Gaia and Ortega, with Mash doing most of the heavy work by making several cuts to the shit, the frigate was completely destroyed into debris and stardust.

"Who's going to get the kill credit Gaia?" Asked Ortega with mirth filled in his voice.

"Mash did all the lifting so this one goes to him. Don't worry Ortega we'll let you have the next one." Gaia said, Mash whooping in glee while Ortega supplied a playful groan as Gaia had killed the first ship.

A flash surged into all of the Tri-Stars, with the trio sensing the approaching presence of three GINNs, headed their way to avenge their fallen comrades.

_'Alright, one for each of us.'_ Gaia thought with a Cheshire grin. In the end, he didn't truly care who came out on top. So long as his brothers in all but blood made it out alive and kicked ass, that would be good enough for Gaia.

"Mash, take the right, Ortega left, and I'm dead center. On three! One, two, THREE!"

"JET STREAM ATTACK!"

**ZAFT Georges Danton. Talia Gladys.**

_'I am going to die. I am going to die today, right here, right now.'_ Talia thought in severe fright, tightly gripping on both of her armchairs while slight shakes carried through the Blackcoats body periodically.

It was only thanks to the constant reminder of her subordinates being present on the bridge that Talia didn't visibly freak out. She revolved to do her best to stay visibly calm and collected as long as possible to present an image of a Captain who was resolute in the face of probable defeat. This would allow the Danton's crew to continue their duties without their morale collapsing, hopefully allowing them to return home.

_'William, will I never see you again?'_ The increasingly likely possibility of leaving her only child alone in the world as an orphan terrified Talia. She knew at this point that barring a miracle that ZAFT had lost the battle. All she wanted to focus on was surviving and returning home to William so that he would not lose his mother so rapidly after his father had been murdered.

If she was in charge of the fleet, Talia would have issued a retreat a minute after the N-Jammers had turned on. After the ZAFT ships had fired the first shots against the stealth fleet, everything had been going downhill rapidly in a clusterfuck that would probably give Uroboros a run for its money.

Not only did all of the stealth ships not lose power when the N-Jammers activated, but they had nuclear propulsion and were actively moving across the battlefield, a general encirclement being formed around the ZAFT formation from which the windows of escape had been closing every minute.

Somehow, not only did the Naturals manage to create some sort of wonder stealth tech and park a fleet of 1300 and an asteroid in L5, they managed to defy the N-Jammer despite the very same weapon being used to decimate the Alliance Orbital Fleet and knock out most of Earth's energy, all of this within the span of little more than 24 hours.

_'Unless this isn't the Alliance and this truly is the might of Zeon.'_ A dark voice inside Talia's head whispered. While the existence of Zeon would be a convenient excuse for the disaster that ZAFT was suffering from currently, it was a scenario that Talia wanted no possibility of being true. If it was true then it meant that ZAFT had fired upon a neutral nation of fellow colonials that had only existed within the Earth sphere for a little more than a day. That would make them unwarranted aggressors, little better than the monsters of Blue Cosmos who launched a nuke towards Junius Seven and taking Eric for her.

With their overwhelming numerical inferiority, the tide of the battle had lied within the stealth fleet at the opening moment. Thousands of bursts of strange pink positron beams flew across the battlefield along with a small collection of missiles that occasionally made their appearance. Strangely the enemy refused to use conventional ballistics or rail weaponry, opting for positron attacks.

The positron weaponry of the stealth fleet was heavily unusual as unlike most beam weaponry that acted as thermal energy, these seemed to carry some sort of kinetic properties. From the limited footage that Talia saw of her fellow ships being destroyed, the beams would tear a linear path through the ship and upon exiting on the opposite side of entry, would continue forward for several kilometers until breaking apart. These new type of beams was the cause of several close calls for the Danton with Talia constantly forcing the ship to adjust its course on a ten second basis in order to avoid getting hit by stray beams.

The only reason why Talia along with what radar picked up to be an estimated 2/3rd's of the fleet, still continued to survive, was that the stealth ships refused to concentrate their firepower on eliminating the fleet as a whole, with most ships holding their fire and moving across the battlefield in what appeared to be a geometric trap meant to prevent any route of escape from forming.

The only reason Talia and the _Danton_ was able to survive was due to her decision to keep all of the GINN's close to the ship as an escort. This proved to be a lifesaving decision as while dozens of GINNs were destroyed quickly by the enemy MS, the retention of the Santiago and Mckinley teams caused the enemy to come towards them and allow the _Danton_ to provide limited support fire. While this allowed the Danton to claim three ships and over a dozen mobile suits at minimum, it came at the cost of of Santiago's men with Greencoat Megan McKinley also lost, half of the _Danton_'s GINN's wiped out.

Currently Talia was trying to best lead the Danton towards the rear where hopefully they could barely escape to the PLANT's and be protected by any possible reinforcements that were on their way. Chasing the ship was three green cruisers whose beams were getting too close for Talia's liking.

"Tyrone, why isn't the enemy being turned into Stardust?!" Hector growled towards the weapons officer, his usual poise being slowly ripped out due to the high stress of the battle.

"I can't get a stable visual lock on the enemy sir! Whatever the fuck kind of supertech the enemy has, it's absolutely tearing apart visual with the quality of the feed being hazy at best. Whenever I can get a clear image, it'll last a second maybe two, and even then it may not be on mark at that second. It's like trying to spear for fish in a polluted lake, a matter made worse by those cruisers shifting their distance!" Tyrone yelled in response, the Greencoat under heavy pressure to perform under these extraordinary circumstances.

What was supposed to occur in the battle was that the GINN's would eliminate any enemy sorties sent against the ship and then force the enemy to play defense around their vessels, allowing the Laurasias and Nazcas to take clean shots at the enemy with little fear of danger. Unfortunately the _Danton_'s three living pilots were struggling to prevent the enemy MS from getting close to the ship, leaving the enemy a free hand to fire upon the Danton in a deathly ironic reversal of ZAFT's hopes.

"Is there anything you need to deal with the situation?" Talia asked Tyrone, willing to give him anything for a minuscule hope of shooting back at the enemy.

"Ma'am, what I need is for one or two people to take care of the forward canon and CIWS. That will allow me to place all my attention on the ship's beam and rail turrets, making it easier to take quick reaction shots and hopefully land a hit on the enemy." Tyrone said. Due to the designers of the Laurasia and Nazca class focusing on using as little personnel as possible in its crew, one person had to take up the job of many traditional positions, which was why the Laurasia's weapons compliment was slaved to Tyrone's station. While this was usually no problem thanks to his enhanced intellect and perception, the enemy jamming made his work absolute hell to fulfill.

"Captain, if I may allow the CIWS and canon functions to be transferred to my console. At this point I'm just a second brain and mouth for you and this will allow Tyrone to do his job easier and strike our pursuers." Hector offered.

Talia grimaced slightly as while she valued Hector's work as XO and wanted to rely upon him to evaluate the overall tactical and strategic picture, at this point there was nothing too grand Hector could offer in either and him taking on half of Tyrone's work would allow for more focus on striking back instead of running away and shooting blindly into the dark.

Reluctantly, she nodded her head. "Do it." Talia ordered, Tyrone and Hector furiously typing away at their consoles to set up the system before they were hit.

Watching a Nazca explode in a great distance away on the monitor, Talia sank back into her chair and a rising depression was kicking in. She couldn't help but wonder if this was how the Alliance felt when they unleashed the N-Jammer, trapped in a horrific slaughter with no hope for victory due to the impossible breakthroughs in science.

Less than an hour ago, ZAFT had marched into battle high and mighty with the expectation that only total victory could occur. Yet here and now they were being massacred while barely making a dent into the stealth fleet.

As all signs of escape were shrinking by the minute, Talia began thinking of using one of the last possible options that she had. A move which in any other battle would be unthinkable and looked down upon by her peers as cowardice.

If Talia was to become a pariah within PLANT, she would gladly receive her damnation. It was a far better fate to dying a pointless death in a battle which was predetermined.

Talia Gladys would soon have no choice but to surrender.

**Solomon. Dozle Zabi.**

Sitting regally upon the CO's chair in the command center, Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi observed the battle taking place before him with contentment in the current course, and pride in those who served under him.

Fortunately despite their usage of some pseudo-science super weapon that had something to do with interfering with the process of nuclear fission, it appeared that ZAFT's arsenal was hardly beyond Zeon's ships and Zakus. While there was probably a variety of differences between the two militaries, so far they seemed to be on a roughly similar level of quality, though Dozle liked to believe that Zeon was the superior force. While this close gap might be a point of issue in any other engagement, the 10 to 1 numerical superiority that Dozle had allowed the battle to be carried to a destined Zeon victory.

It was not to say that there were no grievances for Zeon in the ongoing engagement though. Ever since the heinous first strike ZAFT inflicted upon Zeon, Solomon's sensors could detect a ship suffering destruction at seemingly once or twice every minute. CIC also gave a rough estimate of two to four hundred Zakus being destroyed with hundreds more suffering from varied levels of damage.

It wasn't the statistics alone that weighed down upon Dozle's heart, but some otherwordly phenomena that was currently present. At the same time that a Zeon ship was destroyed, Dozle felt a soft weight tug down upon his chest. It wasn't anything serious enough to give cause for him to fear for his health, rather the unnatural sensation felt as if constant minor pains that refused to cease, as if he was being pelted continuously with paint ball pellets to his heart.

Resolving not to waver in his energy and collapse under pressure in the safety of Solomon while hundreds of thousands of Zeon patriots were risking their lives to defend their nation, Dozle persevered and continued steadfastly in coordinating the 2nd Fleet through the rising Minovsky density through micromanagement in baton communication that allowed for weak spots in the emerging trap to be filled and holes in the enemy to be exploited with ruthless retaliation.

What Dozle did not know was that his demeanor was not important solely for the sake of preserving morale, but that it was becoming a vital part of the continuing battle. With his Newtype potential awakening in the extraordinary and dynamic conditions of the battlefield, Dozle's latent abilities were beginning to be seeded with the fleet experiencing a weak but united spiritual coordination by their commanding officer and prince. It was a technique that when properly matured and studied, would become to be known as battle meditation.

Dozle's cool state was interrupted by one of Solomon's communications officers, "Lord Dozle, 95% of the fleet is now in position and the final stage of Plan 6 is ready to proceed."

Tightening his right fist in excitement, Dozle stood up and gave his next command in a theatrical manner.

"Transmit the codeword Ypres to the fleet and deploy half of Solomon's reserves to help with the cleanup operation. Within the next two hours total victory shall have been claimed. Sieg Zeon!"

"Sieg Zeon!" Shouted the command center in a firm reply, with Dozle sitting back in his chair with a large smirk on his face.

Plan 6 had been a strategy that Dozle had concocted where they would use the overwhelming numbers of the 2nd Fleet to surround the ZAFT ships with the 2nd taking on the formation of a cube so that all six spatial areas of movement could be guarded. With the ZAFT fleets being pushed closer into a tight pocket, the 2nd Fleet would launch its tactical nukes in a heavy volley that would be disguised with its conventional missiles. Within seconds the remainder of the ZAFT fleet would be obliterated and the survivors either forced to surrender or picked off one by one.

It was rather fortune for Dozle that so far ZAFT had not responded in kind with any nuclear weapons. Dozle did not know if they had some strange fixation on fighting honorably or a phobia of nuclear warfare imprinted upon them from Bloody Valentine, but whatever the case it was their loss and Zeon's gain.

While Dozle considered himself an honorable warrior, he would happily use any tool that granted him the power to claim victory for Zeon and minimize casualties for his men. Like NATO under the command of George H.W Bush, Dozle would unleash the power of the atom to wipe out the enemy and protect his nation. It was his duty as a Zabi, nothing more and nothing less.

**MS-06C Zaku II. Anavel Gato.**

Since the battle had begun there were countless times where Anavel Gato was grateful that his liege and commanding officer Dozle Zabi had decided to stay within Solomon instead of taking command from the _Valkyrie_ or personally sortieing in his custom Zaku-II. While Dozle's skill as a pilot was greater than Gato's and his presence on the battlefield would act as nothing but a boon for the 2nd Fleet, Dozle's participation would force Gato and Shin to constantly act as his escorts to fulfill their primary mission as his bodyguard, an act that while Gato would gladly fulfill, would leave him exposed and open to several attacks. With Dozle taking command from Solomon, Gato was free to act as he saw fit on the battlefield alongside Shin. An absolute necessity considering the enemy that they were fighting.

While Gato considered ZAFT's MS to be inferior to the Zaku from his experience, the enemy pilots seemed to make up for the tech disparity in great skill, most likely thanks to their genetic augmentations.

While many of ZAFT's wheat and chaff were cut down in the opening minutes of the battle due to the swarm of Zakus present in the first wave as well as the pressure of dodging hundreds of Minovsky beams, a core of enemy pilots, most likely the elite among these superhumans, remained and continued to do as much damage as possible to the 2nd Fleet.

While there was no doubt that this battle, barring a miracle on the scale of the Insertion as his fellow Spacenoids were calling the event that transported them to the Cosmic Era, would result in a Zeon victory, the strength of the enemy allowed the battle to be prolonged at increasing intervals, causing thousands of Zeon to meet their deaths as ships and Zakus alike went down in a hideous blaze.

Zeon would surely win, but it would come at a cost that should not have been possible with their numerical superiority. It was due to this great skill of his foes that Gato could afford nothing tethering him down. Fortunately he had Shin at his side where with his natural talents they were able to tear through the battlefield and destroy all who stood in their way.

Unlike other emerging aces such as the Black Tri-Stars and Char Aznable whose actions were focused on individual prestige and gaining as many kills as they could on their own, Shin and Gato acted in more support roles, leading the charge of a handful of squadrons from the Solomon mobile regiment against the ZAFT fleet so that the rest of the 2nd could take formation for the final blow.

So far Gato and Shin had been performing incredibly on the battlefield, their superb skill combined with coordination from their fellow pilots allowing them to swarm and eliminate the enemy within minutes. However, Gato had to admit that most of his success was far from his ability alone. Together with his comrades, including some who had tragically been killed prior in the engagement, they had softened up the enemy while a third of Gato's kills had been delivering the final blow instead of totally destroying the enemy on his own. One could not fight a war on their own, a lesson that was being heavily imprinted on Gato with what he had seen within the course of this battle.

Right now Gato and Shin were flying through the battlefield along with two dozen other Zakus, scurrying to try to make contact with nearby mobile suits and have them retreat to a safe position away from the enemy vessels. There were less than five minutes until Ypres was completed with the tactical nuke barrage that they would fire upon ZAFT. While the Zaku could handle the spike in radiation, it was impossible to shield oneself from being in the direct blast radius. In order to minimize any chances of friendly fire, Gato and Shin had to personally scout and warn other pilots to retreat, a necessary act thanks to the high Minovsky density that was increasing with each minute.

Gato was observing Shin make skin contact with another Zaku when he felt a flash course through his body, electrifying his nerves and alerting him to an incoming danger despite the lack of activity on his Zaku's sensors.

"Shin, punch your verniers! Evade hard right!" Gato warned on the comlink. While the message was slightly fuzzy, Shin heard it completely through an unintentional psychic projection that Gato had created in duress, narrowly dodging an incoming beam along with the fellow pilot he was talking to, a green beam barely missing them by meters.

Gato shifted his Zaku by sixty degrees and punched his verniers to full acceleration towards an enemy mobile suit that could barely be made out due to its pitch black paint coating. While the Zaku's green paint seemed an odd choice in space, it was a practical necessity in order to help pilots distinguish one another in times of combat with high minovsky density. It seemed that the enemy held a similar idea with the exception of this custom machine.

Through his Newtype senses, Gato could see an image of the mobile suit carrying some sort of giant beam canon, desperately attempting to place an aim on Gato while charging it up for another attack.

Not wanting to give his foe a chance, Gato lined up his bazooka and took two shots. The GINN avoided the two rounds with ease, though Gato didn't mind since he was counting on it.

With the GINN still holding onto the charging beam canon, it could not change weapons quickly or fire cleanly at an incoming target. This allowed Gato to change to his heat hawk quickly and come in close for a melee attack. He raised the heat hawk above his Zaku's head and launched it in a downward position, the GINN pushed the beam canon towards Gato, sacrificing it to allow him to escape.

While Gato's Zaku was just barely able to escape untouched thanks to his reflexes and a warning flash, the explosion blinded his monitor in a bright light for six seconds. This allowed the GINN to change to a heavy sword and attempt to attack Gato, only to come under fire by an incoming Shin who gave suppression with his 120mm machine gun.

Shin's fire caused minor damage to the GINN and forced him to retreat, allowing Gato to recover from his temporary blindness and charge forward with his heat hawk. With the GINN focusing on trying to dodge Shin, he had momentarily forgotten about Gato, giving him an opening to deliver a killing blow to the cockpit.

Shin maneuvered his Zaku next to Gato, initiating skin touch. "Good work there Gato, if you're lucky then you might be a double ace by the end of the day." Shin said with slight warmth. Shin was already one with eleven kills while Gato was slightly behind with eight.

"Thanks. Not how I expected to become an ace, though eliminating five mobile suits is a far more worthy achievement then taking down five Saberfish." Gato said, Shin muttering a slight agreement.

"We've run out of time. Ypres is about to start in two minutes so let's get out of the blast radius now." Shin said in both a suggestion and order. Not wanting to get nuked, Gato agreed and followed Shin out of the blast radius at full speed. While he was not religious, Gato said a silent prayer hoping that no Zeon would get caught in the blast.

The two Royal Guardsmen retreated out to the edge of the battle, positioning themselves in front of two Chivvay's in Battlegroup Delta. Right after they had positioned themselves, thousands of missiles had launched themselves towards the ZAFT fleet, which if Gato guessed was down to half of its original force, those alive taking various amounts of damage.

In less than a minute dozens of miniature suns were formed within L5 as the atoms were combined, claiming most of the ZAFT vessels instantaneously.

It was a powerful sight to behold, very few images could combine both beauty and horror as the scene before Gato did.

The Spaniard Spacenoid couldn't help but gaze in awe, until a flash struck and a brief but powerful image popped in his head.

"_For the rebirth of the ideals of Zeon, for the success of Operation Stardust. Solomon, I have returned!_"

Gato shook his head, trying to clear the image out and focus on the battle. What he had just seen was a memory from some strange dream that he had seen when he was knocked out by the event. It was a surreal experience where Gato had observed himself piloting a behemoth of a white and blue mobile suit. He piloted it into battle at Solomon, though the circumstances were completely different to now with Gato facing on an entire Federation fleet on his own, no Zeon presence in sight. Once Gato got above the battlefield, he launched the mobile suit's weapon, a nuclear bazooka that decimated the Feddie fleet.

That battle wasn't the only thing he saw in his dreams as there were several other sequences that Gato remembered clearly. He saw himself fighting in the same mobile suit against an enemy suit with a similar design piloted by some rookie Feddie, he saw himself retreating with Commodore Delaz from A Bao Qu where a great struggle was taking place, he guided a colony to drop upon the Earth where he had an intense confrontation with the same pilot he had faced before and some mysterious blonde. The dream ended with him launching a kamikaze in a mobile armor against a Salamis, taking the ship's and his life.

It was a surreal experience and Gato had little to no understanding of what he had just seen. Sure dreams rarely made any sense, but this seemed so real, as if he was both experiencing the events and playing them as memories. Most likely his subconscious had dreamed up a war with the Federation due to nervousness surrounding the Declaration. Whatever the case it was most likely meaningless now. The Earth Federation now longer existed and Zeon's independence would now be eternal. Their war was not with the Earthnoids, rather these Superhuman Spacenoids who had fired without provocation.

The nuclear explosions were met with a chorus of cheers from fellow pilots and ships in the area. With their fleet eliminated the survivors were sure to surrender, ending the battle in a glorious victory for Zeon.

"Looks like the battle is over Gato." Shin said through an initiated skin touch.

"Yes and what a great way to finish. To be honest, I think we could've had Lord Dozle join in his Zaku without any worry. While some of the enemy was a challenge, it was nothing we couldn't-" Gato's boasting was interrupted when he suddenly felt a great pressure force itself upon him. This was the most powerful paranormal sensation that he felt since the event and that mysterious cry that spread through the fleet when Europe and Africa went dark.

In those two intense, the feelings that Gato senses were chaotic and mostly fear and confusion. What he felt now was raw hatred, a blinding an terrible malice directed towards Zeon from hundreds of souls from the surviving enemy. While Gato could feel fear and terror mixed in from the rest of the survivors, it was overwhelmed by the mighty loathing that his body was being flooded upon by numerous souls of ZAFT.

In seconds, dozens upon dozens of bright lights were ignited with trails that led themselves to Zeon lines. These mobile suits were coming at full speed, the danger of incoming fire from Zakus and Zeon ships be damned. Gato's Newtype senses could pick up five GINN's accelerating towards them rapidly, disgust and anger overwhelming the souls of these pilots.

Communications picked up a feral animalistic growl that eliminated from one of the GINN's. Despite the high Minovsky density the incoming message was transmitted clearly with no interference.

**"WIPE OUT ALL THE NATURALS! EXTERMINATE THEM!"**

**MS-06C Zaku-II. Miguel Gaia.**

Due to their recently acquired Newtype abilities, all three of the Black Tri-Stars had felt with distinct clarity the dark rage that came from many ZAFT survivors of the nuclear barrage by Zeon. It was a chilling experience for each pilot who had never felt anything similar before in their lives.

While each Tri-Star was now a Newtype, they were on the lower end of the spectrum in comparison to the likes of Char Aznable or future legends of the Cosmic Era such as Mu La Flaga and Rau Le Creuscet. Except for a brief flash by Gaia concerning a glimpse of their Cosmic Era counterparts, none of the trio had experienced any visions of the lost future during the transition nor did they feel the terror of the Earth when the N-Jammer was inflicted upon them.

Each Tri-Star did have their Newtype perception aid them in battle, but these were minor pulses of their full potential with each pilot believing until now that it was solely due to their natural skill that they were able to overcome the enemy.

"What the hell was that Gaia?!" Mash asked in great concern as the Tri-Stars flew through the battlefield towards a direct engagement with the remnants of ZAFT.

"I could understand one of us feeling it due to war nerves, but all three of us at the same time? I also don't think that we were the only ones Gaia, I _felt _other people go through the same thing. This is some straight up psychic shit and I don't like it!" Said Ortega, adding his own two cents.

Gaia could agree with his teammates and felt that something very unnatural was going on. While he never put stock in superstition and would have days ago laughed over the concept of him being some sort of psychic, the fact that they and the rest of Zeon existed in a new timeline meant anything was possible.

"It's a brave new world boys, you all heard stuff like this happening around the rest of the fleet so clearly we aren't the only ones who caught the psychic bug. Moving to a different timeline probably messed with our bodies somehow, but that ain't important. Let's just survive for now and have the docs check on us after we come back home with a win." Gaia said, his confidence calming the other two Tri-Stars somewhat and allowing them to focus on the task at hand.

After another thirty seconds of traveling, the Tri-Stars caught a distant explosion sixty-seven degrees to their position, causing them to accelerate in order to determine what had happened. When the trio arrived they found a Musai on its last legs with fires surrounding the hull and major chunks of the ship floating off as debris.

As they got closer to the Musai, Gaia could make out a small collection of escape pods floating together in a small collection a couple of kilometers from the Musai. The ship's Komusai had somehow survived its mothership's death and was moving to collect as many of its fellow survivors as it could.

At first Gaia was debating on whether or not he should stick with the Komusai until reinforcements arrived or if he should go, until a flash jolted his body warning him of danger. Unfortunately it was too late for Gaia to take any action as he saw a flurry of missiles slam into the Komusai, destroying it completely.

At the same time, several 76mm rounds were raining down on the escape pods, slowly claiming the lives of the survivors one by one in a desperate attempt to ensure that no Zeon would live from the Musai.

Following the tracers position, Gaia, Mash, and Ortega flew upwards in an arc over the Musai to find two GINN's who were using the ship's wreckage to act as cover while they safely massacred the survivors.

"**YOU GODDAMN BASTARDS!**" Gaia cursed, Mash and Ortega saying similar sentiments in their cockpits. Gaia had no illusions that war was a bloody business and up til now he and his brothers had been rather proactive in destroying as many of ZAFT as possible. However, Gaia knew that in war there were wars to be followed and one thing you never did was kill a soldier who had no ability to defend themselves.

There were probably multiple opportunities so far in the battle for the Tri-Stars to completely kill any ZAFT survivors they encountered, either those trying to escape their ships or pilots in husks of GINN's. So far the Tri-Stars had restrained themselves as in the words of Gaia, "There's rules and shit to follow." The survivors were already defeated and presented no threat to Zeon, not to mention that the higher the people captured the better hand Zeon had in peace negotiations.

All of that was now completely moot with the GINN's actions. They had crossed the line and now the Tri-Stars were sure to make them pay.

Mash was the first to take action, pushing his verniers to the limits and positioning his custom heat hawk above his Zaku's head to strike on the GINN that fired on the escape pods.

Hollering like a banshee on the open comm, Mash was too quick for the GINN to react too as it was still lost in killing as many Naturals as possible.

This allowed Mash to get a clean strike without any resistance, slicing the GINN down the middle in a perfect cut.

The second GINN desperately tried to escape by retreating to the rear, firing all of its remaining missiles towards Gaia and Ortega to allow it to escape. These missiles were easily avoided by the two Tri-Stars as they danced around the barrage, Ortega also firing a few rounds of his bazooka to prematurely detonate them.

Lining up his anti-ship rifle, Gaia fired and hit the GINN square in the cockpit. Enraged and wanting more blood, Gaia fired two more rounds, hitting the GINN's head and torso, with Ortega adding a final strike that eliminated the GINN's structural integrity and had it collapse into dozens of pieces of debris.

"I can't believe those superhumans murdered our comrades! Let's return the favor Gaia and send all of them to hell!" Ortega shouted, Mash voicing his agreement.

"Nah boys, we're better than those superhuman fuckers, there's no need to stoop down to their level. Besides, I'm sure after Lord Dozle hears of what happened today, he'll send all of the prisoners to Lady Kycillia's care." Gaia said in a wicked smile.

Seeing four mobile suit trails in the distance, the Tri-Stars waited to confirm if they were foe or friendly, until visual showed them an image that while hazy, was definitively that of three Zaku-I's and a Zaku-II.

Satisfied that the survivors would be tended to, Gaia ordered his teammates to head back into the battlefield and eliminate any resistance that they would find. Unfortunately for the Tri-Stars, the incident they had witnessed was only one of several that took place after the nuking of the ZAFT fleet, a dark stain on ZAFT's image that would hinder Zeon's perception of them for months to come.

**ZAFT Georges Danton. Talia Gladys.**

The great discipline that the _Danton_'s crew had shown so far in the battle had virtually collapsed when the detection of several dozen nuclear explosions took place across the battlefield.

At first there was nothing but a deathly silence on the bridge of the Danton, not a single peep until Helen Mao, shaking in terror with tears streaming visibly down her face, confirmed that they were not only nuclear explosions, but that they were _nuclear fusion_ explosions based on the lack of fissile remnants.

The N-Jammer, ZAFT's hopeful trump card that would bring the war to a swift end and prevent a repeat of Junius Seven was now useless. The Naturals they had been facing had not only created a stealth fleet, not only had a jamming device that could make all forms of communication and visual detection difficult at best, not only created mobile suits that seemed to be superior to the GINN, not only fielded advanced warships that was equal to a majority of ZAFT's fleet, they had done the impossible and harnessed the power of the sun. Naturals had nuclear fusion.

At this revelation all order had ceased within the bridge with the crew erupting into heavy shouting over how to best proceed.

While Hector was trying desperately to regain some semblance of order, Talia sat frozen, glued to her chair with a blank expression of shock and horror on her face. As despicable as Uroboros was, it was a brutal necessity in order to protect the PLANTs, so that her son William would never suffer the fate of his father and live a happy peaceful life without persecution by bigoted Naturals.

This grand technology that was meant to act as the PLANT's shield was little more than an expensive decoration. If the Alliance could harness nuclear fusion, then the war was over at this point. The Earth had won and now they were about to seek a bloody revenge for the calamity that was Uroboros. There was nothing to stop Blue Cosmos from seeing the entirety of the PLANTs wiped out from existence.

_'Unless, it's not the Alliance and this is truly Zeon.'_ Talia thought.

At first she continued to deny the possibility of Zeon's existence, but with each passing existence she had grown more accepting of the idea as it was the only logical reason to explain what was unfolding, despite the fantastical impossibility for such an event.

If the Alliance had nuclear fusion and was able to equip them to thousands of ships, why did they not equip them to the Alliance orbital fleet to face Uroboros. Why did Earth go dark from Uroboros and not stay fine with nuclear fusion energy? Why did the L5 "Stealth fleet" stay parked around the base and not attack the PLANTs with their fusion nukes,_ especially_ when Earth went dark? Why were these mobile suits and Natural pilots superior to the GINN?

All Talia could think of was whys, yet with each new question she found the idea of the Alliance being being the enemy they thought to be ludicrous.

With this epiphany an monumental guilt was forming within Talia's gut over the fact that they had fired upon a neutral nation, though she refused to continue in inaction. She had to be decisive now more than ever to save her crew and ensure they return home.

"Everyone! The battle is lost, we need to-" Talia was in the middle of attempting to rally the bridge with a few officers stopping and looking at their officer, though Talia was unable to continue as she saw a red blur streak across the Danton's view monitor, then second later Talia was jolted in her seat as the entire bridge shook under great pressure. THe lights flickered on and off and shrapnel was being teared off the walls.

When everything had settled, Talia had taken stock of the bridge, attempting to see if everyone had made it out alright. While almost everyone had been unscathed, someone was not as unfortunate as Talia looked to her left in horror with Hector lying dazed in his chair, a large piece of metal striking his head and causing severe bleeding from his skull.

"HECTOR!" Talia screamed, panic rising at the sight of their first officer bleeding profusely. While their physiology allowed Coordinators to suffer greater blows than Naturals and come out alive and healthy, they were only human and blows to the head were just as devastating for them as it was for Naturals. At best Hector had a concussion, at worst he was suffering a brain aneurysm and would die within a minute.

"Louis get the emergency kit and put some pressure on him! Helen, call medical and get someone up here five minutes ago! Helen, open up all communications channel with the enemy!" Talia ordered in rapid succession. With her friend and XO on the verge of death, Talia gained the courage to do what she should've done before the nukes were thrown.

After Helen confirmed that channels were open, Talia spoke as quickly as she could.

"All units aligned with Zeon, this is Captain Talia Gladys of the ZAFT _Georges Danton_. We Surrender, I repeat, we surrender."

**MS-06C Zaku-II. Char Aznable.**

_"All...Zeon...Talia Galdys...ZAFT...We Surrender...repeat...surrender."_

After Char had taken out the GINN guarding the ZAFT frigate, marking his fifteenth kill and making him a triple ace along with the sinking of a frigate earlier, he had reloaded his bazooka and was set on firing on the frigate, making it his second ship sunk out of the entire engagement.

However, before he could fire Char heard the heavily distorted audio that the captain of the ship, this Talia Gladys presumably, was attempting to surrender to him.

While the communication was barely eligible thanks to the high Minovsky density which was now reaching 70%, there was enough legibility to clearly show that the frigate before him was surrendering.

After he had heard the message, a dark part of Char's mind told him to disregard her attempt and then eliminate the ship entirely. While capturing a frigate was a noteworthy accomplishment, destroying it would be even bigger and further Char's rise to power within Zeon. This would bring him closer to the Zabis outside of his "friendship" with Garma, while at the same time giving him some hard power within the military that could allow him to reach out to old Deikun Loyalists to lay the foundations for a coup against the Zabi's and the restoration of either the Republic, or a new Principality under Casval Rem Deikun.

Besides his lust for power in his quest for revenge, Char also wanted to fire upon the ship as he had heard from a passing Zaku-I squad that they had witnessed a few enemy mobile suits executing Zeon escape pods. This was an abhorrent crime in Char's eyes and made him want to settle the score against these superhumans.

There was no one else within the area, and Char could always claim that Minovsky interference made the message intelligible or that he hadn't received it at all, though he would unfortunately need to do some slicing of his Zaku's computer to get rid of the small transmission.

_'Are these people really deserving of such a fate? After all they are Spacenoids like us?'_ A voice of consciousness within Char spoke, causing him to lower down his bazooka.

Char had not been able to get a full understanding of the Cosmic Era, and he highly doubted that even Degwin or Gihren were aware of the exact history and nature of this new timeline, but what little information he read showed that ZAFT was fighting a war of independence against an _Earth Alliance_, a collection of nations that had constructed the PLANTs and had oppressed the Coordinators living there through authoritarian economic manipulation and brutal killings of its civilians, a situation that sounded eerily familiar to Zeon's past.

While Char was not comfortable with the idea of Coordination as it went against his father's path for human evolution with Newtypes (a phenomena that after today would likely be publicly acknowledged and confirmed), these Coordinators were still humans who suffered under the tyranny of Earth's gravity and were exiled into space to live lives of misery and poverty. When the PLANTs gained a semblance of self-reliance and prosperity, the Alliance cracked down further and fought to keep them under the heel of their boot, just like Zeon and the Federation.

Char had no idea why this ZAFT acted so appallingly today and fired upon Zeon without provocation, though perhaps it was not due to an inherent evil of their genetics, rather racial radicalization or the PLANTs suffering under crooked tyranny in leadership like the Zabis.

Whatever the reason, the battle was won and Zeon stood victorious. While this ship may live, they would have absolutely no impact on the war effort and soon Zeon would bring those responsible to justice. Besides, capturing a ship singlehandidly was still an impressive feat was it not?

Char moved his Zaku close to the presumed bridge of the ship, raising his bazooka in a cautious pose to eliminate it should they try anything rash. His Zaku moved to become meters away from the ship, so that Char would have as clear communications as possible and he could destroy the ship with no chances to miss should the worst happen.

Char opened up all of the Zaku's communication's methods and contacted the ship.

"To this ship's Captain, presumably Talia Gladys. I am Lieutenant Char Aznable of the Zeon Space Force. Depower your weapons and cease your acceleration. As of this moment you are now prisoners of war of the Principality of Zeon. Refusal to comply will result in your destruction." Char said, hoping the message got through clearly.

Eight seconds passed until Talia Gladys responded, "Lieutenant Aznable, thank...accepting our surrender. We...comply momentarily. I request...stay with us so that we are not fired upon by..."The message ended though Char had once again understood her words with his intuition.

"Acknowledged, will stay with the ship until relief arrives. I repeat, I will stay with the ship until relief arrives." Char said, the lack of response being a hopeful sign that they would comply.

For the next four minutes Char stayed with the Georges Danton, an uneasy quiet passing between the ZAFT frigate and the red Zaku-II. While Char was able to flag down a mixture of Zaku's I's and II's, from their word and the lack of beam weaponry or explosions brightening up the battlefield, it seemed that the battle had just ended with the rest of ZAFT either eliminated, surrendered, or being mopped up by the hundreds of Zakus and ships within the area.

Thus marked the end of the Red Comet's debut. On this day Char Aznable became a name of fear and awe as the ace of Zeon who had the most kills in MS to MS warfare, a title that he would hold for significant period of time until events later in the year gave rise to the first generation of true aces, progenitors of mobile warfare that would be upheld as the golden standard of pilots for generations to come.

On April 2nd, 70 CE, the First Contact War began with the Battle of Solomon, a Zeon victory that had wiped out nearly a tenth of all ZAFT forces and turn L5 from PLANT space to a contested Lagrange point, nearly overturning the success of Uroboros if it weren't for the actions of both the Zabi dynasty and PLANT supreme council in the days to come. The second half and in many respects the great climax of the First Contact War would begin, with the Battle of Pezun and the greater L4 campaign.

**A/N: Now we conclude the Battle of Solomon, the opening of the First Contact War between Zeon and ZAFT/Earth Alliance and the bloody introduction of Zeon into the Earth sphere.**

**This chapter was by far the largest chapter of Cosmic Crusade and it's also my favorite that I have written yet as we have diverged from canon wildly with the battle marking the first MS on MS fight of the Cosmic Era, the paths of all three powers diverging wildly from here.**

**Since this is my first proper non-canon battle, please give constructive feedback on the combat and tell me how much you enjoyed it. This will be a taste of the greater war to come in Gihren's Glory and there will be plenty more battles like this in the future.**

**To address immediate and important plot points, Anavel Gato is a Newtype. He's roughly on par with canon Char while all of the Tri-Stars are among the lowest tiers of Newtypes with Gaia being the strongest among them. Dozle has displayed incredible potential in the battle, but he is still immature in Newtype development with a long way to go and there are plenty of Newtype heavyweights on all sides that are at his level or above him. Char is right now the highest scoring ace during the battle with Shin, Gato, and Gaia close behind in that order in 14 for Shin and Gato and Gaia tied at 12. Full statistics of the battle will be revealed later but let's just say that while it's a major victory for Zeon, it's not the best case scenario for them and Solomon along with Pezun is going to reveal some deep flaws within the Zeon war machine. Lastly Talia is now currently a prisoner at Solomon for the time being. Her greater fate will be addressed in near future chapters, but let's just say that while Dozle isn't going to be bloodthirsty towards the prisoners, his view of ZAFT has been tarnished greatly by them firing the first shots and several instances of executing unarmed and escaping Zeon combatants.**

**Next chapter which I garuntee will not happen after Gihren's Glory 43, is going to be a short focus on Garma's first contact with Orb and how he's dealing with the Raifuku Maru crisis. After that will be the Battle of Pezun, then the general fallout of the battles and both ZAFT and the Alliance realizing of Zeon's hard existence.**

**Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more!**


	11. HOW TO handle First Contact

**April 2nd, 70 CE. 0430 Colonial Standard Time. Kudelia, Principality of Zeon. Kazuma Hara POV**

While he had no criminal record to compare his current interment to any previous experiences, things were going pretty well for Kazuma Hara and the crew of the _Raifuku Maru_ at the moment, or at least he hoped so.

After their initial encounter the _Brunswick_ escorted the _Raifuku Mar_u inside the port of a closed-type O'Neil, presumably this_ Kudelia_ colony that he spoke of. After some initial silence when they had landed, the ship was boarded by a company of soldiers. These men and woman of varying race and ethnicity all wore bulky green normal suits. When they had taken them off they revealed rather bizarre dark green and gold uniforms that reminded him too eerily of the Fascist states of the old 20th century. Whoever they were dealing with, they were definitely not one of the superstates.

When the company had boarded they had herded the entirety of the ship's crew to the mess hall where their commander stated that they were to be temporarily imprisoned until they were verified to not be spies of the Federation or the masterminds behind the bio attack on this Principality. When one of his Coordinator crew members expressed disgust at the accusation that they were a spy for the Atlantic Federation, their captor's expressed puzzlement with one of them clarifying that they were searching for spies of the _Earth_ Federation.

This and numerous other oddities within their initial encounter kept on raising endless questions with seemingly no answers. Something Hara did not like at all.

For the past day they had been kept together within the mess hall. Fortunately their current location gave them available access to decent food that their captors allowed to be prepared by them, and while they were always under constant watch, they were never forced to stay silent or not interact, allowing the crew to stand together in solidarity and calming many of their worst fears.

Throughout the day they had been taken away from the mess hall one by one to be interrogated. At first Hara and many of the others feared that they were sent to be tortured or worse, but fortunately the first person that had been sent came back with no wounds on his body, stating that they simply engaged in a verbal interrogation, but that their captors were acting strange and refused to believe anything he said, instead spouting some nonsense about a _Zeon_ and more tales of this Earth Federation.

Hara had been interrogated himself and had given similar information, with his captors only acting frustrated throughout the affair, but thankfully never punished physically.

He expected his entire crew to questioned, but when they went through a third of the ship they abruptly stopped and asked for their ship's Doctor, Muta Kawajiri, to be escorted with them for the purposes of "Helping to distribute a vaccine to respond to a viral outbreak within the colony". This drove up the fears of Hara and the rest of the crew greatly, though a short video call that was made through some weirdly bulky tablet had Kawajiri assure him that he was alright, though there were obvious signs that he was under watch for everything that he said.

With little ways to resist, Hara was resigned to his fate and waited for events to run its course, grateful that at the very least he was not captured by zealots of some kind.

In the morning the ship's captain was sleeping in the mess hall on the floor when he was abruptly awakened by two guards who at gunpoint told him to get up and have them escort him to meet an "important visitor". Whoever it was, Hara at least hoped that this person had enough authority to see their release.

Doing as they ordered, Hara traveled through the _Raifuku Maru_ and exited into the interior of the space port. While he was walking Hara made not to observe every single path he took, both to formulate a potential plan to escape and to get a sense of who were keeping them.

After about seventeen minutes of travel Hara reached his destination which seemed to be a jail cell that they used for local criminals. Hara went inside and found himself faced to face with who he presumed to be the leader of his captors.

His first impressions of the young man before him was that he distinctly reminded him of Yuna Roma Seiran. While he had never had the pleasure to meet the heir, or anyone from the Five Great houses from that matter, the man's distinctive purple hair reminded him of Lord Yuna, along with the confidence that he displayed while sitting, similar to the air that Lord Yuna gave off in many of his appearances in the media.

Fortunately, the man before him also gave off a warm aura of a calm and gentle figure. While this may have been an act, Hara hoped that on some level this was genuine.

The guards pushed him to take a seat, removing his handcuffs with Hara rubbing his wrists to provide some comfort for the old bones. This action seemed to make the leader opposite him wince slightly in discomfort, another good sign if any.

When he sat down the purple-haired man got up and walked slightly towards him, offering his right hand to shake with Hara returning cautiously.

"Greetings Captain Hara, my name is Garma Zabi, I am a Major of the Zeon Army and the youngest son of our nation's Sovereign, Degwin Sodo Zabi." Garma greeted him. The words were nothing more than gibberish and titles, though Hara assumed they had some importance.

"Sovereign, is that some title for your head of state? Also you said nation, I presume this is the Principality of Zeon that your people have kept raving about?" Hara questioned.

Garma rubbed his head slightly, letting off a soft chuckle. "You would be correct, the Sovereign is the title that belong's to our nation's, the Principality of Zeon's, reigning monarch. My father is its first with his ascension last year being the birth of the Principality proper with Zeon before being a Republic. As his son I am Zeon's prince, though we don't hold to any sort of feudal structure so my father and siblings are the only nobles of Zeon." Garma explained.

"How should I address you then? Your majesty, your grace, your highness?"

"Protocol dictates that my father and brothers are referred to as Lord, so you may refer to me as Lord Garma. I know that you have several questions, but if I have to explain every single sentence that I utter then we're going to be here all day. For now I request that you stay silent until I explain why we interred your ship, though I reassure you it is just for convenience and should not be interpreted as ill will from us."

For the next twenty minutes Garma calmly explained the rather bizarre situation that they found themselves in. He spoke of how this colony and hundreds of others within L2 were transported here from another timeline called the _Universal Century_. It was a world where a third world war broke out in the 1990's and humanity soon thereafter united into an Earth Federation. When the Universal Century calendar began in the middle of the 21st century, the Federation began forcibly exporting most of humanity to space colonies in the various Lagrange points. Zeon was one of those nations founded by Spacenoids, the people who emigrated to space, with the Principality declaring independence shortly before they were mysteriously transported to the Universal Century.

While it was a rather impossible tale, to his own surprise Hara believed Garma. Not only due to the information that he had supplied him with a datapad that went into great detail over this Universal Century, but also the sheer physical existence of these colonies within L2. A month ago this Lagrnage point was empty, yet now hundreds of colonies were in their place. It was a feat that none of the superstates, or the PLANTs despite the propaganda that Blue Cosmos painted upon them, could possibly create.

However, when it came to the history of the Universal Century, Hara was quite skeptical of Garma's account, though he didn't dare question him upon it. When he went over the history of the Federation and Spacenoids, Garma spoke of Earth with a heavy venom and painted the Earth Federation as if it were the worst thing to ever happen in human history. He spoke of the harsh plight of the first Spacenoids, how they had to create new lives in poverty, torn away from their homelands, lost until this Zeon Zum Deikun came and provided them a guiding light into self-sufficiency.

While such a history was not in and of itself unbelievable as there were some resemblances to the creation of Orb and the PLANTs, and Hara had personally witnessed the brutality of East Asia that such a malignant government as the Federation existing was not unlikely, it was quite clear throughout the conversation that Garma held a strong bias towards Zeon and hardly dared to play devil's advocate for Earth's perspective. Without the Earth Federation to argue on its behalf, it was likely that the only account they could have of this Universal century would be one that was heavily influenced by Zeon's propaganda. History was written by the victors, and with Zeon being the last remnant of their timeline they could paint their history any way they wanted and no one in the Cosmic Era could deny the narrative.

Hara knew deep down that no nation, even the vile East Asia, was as black and white as Garma described. Humanity was simply far too diverse for such a clean story to exist.

Whatever the case, there was no Earth Federation to present it's case and with his current state of imprisonment there was no reason for him to deny Garma's version of the facts. Better to just visibly accept it at face value than to piss off the Nationalist in front of him and potentially bring about horrid conditions for his ship.

When Garma was done talking he gestured for Hara to speak, with the Orb Captain having many questions.

"Now that you are aware that we have no ties with this Earth Federation, nor are in any way responsible for the event, will we be free to return to our country?" Hara asked desperately.

Fortunately, his worst fears were assuaged when Garma spoke, "Have no fear Captain, just as you said your ship has committed no crime towards us and two days ago we did not even exist in reality. This unfortunate incident was all based on a misunderstanding and as such it would be wrong of us to detain you any longer."

Hara let go a great sigh of relief, glad that he and his crew were safe and they could return home as soon as possible. "So what exactly happens now?"

"While I would like to send your ship on your way with an apology from us as soon as possible, there are two factors that prevent it from occurring."

"And those are?"

"Firstly, the current state of war that exists between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT. Our satellites have observed that a great escalation has occurred within the past 24 hours. First there was a great battle in orbit between thousands of ships on both sides with a sizable debris field forming in the aftermath. During and after the battle our satellites observed large portions of Earth losing power completely. Based on what little knowledge we have about the current state of affairs, it appears that ZAFT is responsible for unleashing some supereweapon on the planet, though what it's nature is I have no idea." Garma said.

Hearing that ZAFT was responsible for such a calamity caused a large pit to form in Hara's stomach. Already Coordinators were being persecuted across the Earth sphere for a number of asinine and false reasons. If they openly committed such an atrocity as to wipe out Earth's power, then they would justify all of Blue Cosmos' propaganda and cause billions of Naturals to rise in hatred to wipe out the Coordinators.

His thoughts drifted towards his two grandchildren, Shinn and Mayu. They had been incredibly lucky to be raised in such a tolerant nation such as Orb. After what befell on the Earth, would they for the first time in their lives suffer from hatred due to their existence as Coordinators?

"Captain Hara? Are you alright?" Garma asked, bringing Hara out of his stupor.

"I apologize Lord Garma, it's just that the revelation you gave of ZAFT's actions is quite troubling of myself to hear. I have two grandchildren who are Coordinators, I can't imagine the pain they'll face due to the actions of those in the PLANTs."

Garma nodded his head to show sympathy, "I understand Captain. While my words are not a final promise of my father's, if this war does escalate then I will try my best to steer Zeon to do everything it can to prevent unnecessary atrocities from occurring. It's our Earth sphere now, it wouldn't do for it to be destroyed just as we arrived.

"Thank you Lord Garma." Hara said, showing a smile of gratitude. "Were you saying anything while I was spacing out? I didn't hear much after the attacks."

"What I was saying is that due to the unpredictable nature of the war, we would like to keep you within Zeon's borders as guests for now until ships from Orb's Space Force arrive to escort you back to Heliopolis. While I do not understand much of the Cosmic Era's strange politics, the superstates seem to respect your neutrality so your ship is likely to arrive safely with them rather than being escorted by our warships which are complete unknowns to all but East Asia."

"That makes sense. And what is the second reason for keeping us here?"

"The reason why we have kept your ship's doctor in our custody for the past several hours, to vaccinate you and prevent any diseases from our side infecting your crew."

Garma's statement caused Hara to shake slightly in horror from the obvious implications that he had missed til now. "Vaccinate us, what diseases did your Universal Century produce, shouldn't it be the same as ours?! Did your people even suffer the S-1 and S-2 influenza?!"

Hara only calmed down when he saw Garma raising his hand in the air, his expression serene and unchanged. "Calm down Captain, I would not have had this meeting if I thought I could contract a deadly virus, or at the very least I would have done so in a normal suit. Our medical histories have been compared and it seems that up til the 21st century they are fairly compatible with the Universal Century only producing minor mutations of common viruses, though we lacked anything comparable to the S1 and S2 flu.

From what Doctor Fujiwara has shared of your medical histories, no one within your crew has been infected and current bio-scans of your ship show no diseases that are exclusive to the Cosmic Era. However, I cannot guarantee that nothing from our colony has spread to your people, which is why I would like to vaccinate you. Our release of the _Raifuku Maru_ would be rather malignant if we let one of our viruses go back to Earth and the greater Earth sphere." Garma said, his logic making great sense to Hara.

"So this is it, we are free?"

"Like I said, you shall remain here at Kudelia until representatives from Orb come to escort you, though you shall stay as guests and not criminals. When you return your people shall be free to go anywhere they want on the _Raifuku Maru_, but for now you must stay inside of the ship unless you receive permission from myself. I shall be making contact with your political leaders shortly, so provided another space-time anomaly occurs or the Alliance and ZAFT doesn't complicate matters, then you should head back to Orb within days."

With the good news a great amount of pressure was lifted from Hara and he felt a great bliss at their current fortune.

Tears welled up in his eyes, happy to return home. "Thank you Lord Garma. Orb will not forget this gesture of benevolence. Welcome to the Cosmic Era."

**April 2nd, 70 CE. 2015 Orb Standard. Orb National Defense Command Center. Olofat. Orb Union. Uzumi Nara Athha POV**

Inside of the situation room sat the heads of all five of the Orb's Great Houses. While the "Big Five" as they were referred to by international media, met on a near daily basis for the running of their nation, this meeting was an affair unlike any other. Today not only would they be dealing with the aftermath of ZAFT's attack on Orb, but they were in the middle of first contact with a nation that was born in another reality.

Uzumi sat at the forefront of the table facing the monitor, with Hayato Fuzan on his right and Unato Ema Seiran on his left.

Next to Unato sat the tall and pale figure of Koto Sahaku. The sickly head of House Sahaku looked highly unwell, though it was a sign of Uzumi's familiarity with the stoic noble that he knew this was the best and most alert he had seen him in weeks. With his terrible immune system it was no wonder that he choose to make his twin children Coordinators, to give them a life free of the ailments that he had been cursed with since a young child.

Next to Hayato sat a strikingly beautiful green-haired woman who was the only Coordinator among those present, Keiko Keitamura. The Keitamura family was the noble House who were primarily in charge of Orb's medical industry with Keitamura Pharmaceuticals being one of the top 10 pharma corporations in the world. As a Coordinator, Keiko was extremely vocal in her support of the PLANTs with her constantly urging Uzumi to officially recognize them as an independent nation, something that Unato had been largely opposed against for fear of bringing down the wrath of the Alliance.

When Uzumi had told Keiko about ZAFT's obliteration of the majority of Earth's energy grid, while she did not outright condone the attack, she never spoke against it and Uzumi could've sworn that he saw a soft smile on her lips at the mentions of the Alliance casualties in orbit. Of his peers Uzumi would need to watch Keiko the most in the coming days for fear that she would recklessly drag Orb into the war in support of ZAFT now that they were dominating the conflict.

Right now, he had to place the war and the suffering that Earth was undergoing in the back of his mind. The first order of business was to establish peaceful relations with this Zeon, which if the past hour was any indication was sure to be a success.

Two hours ago their satellites had picked up a communication from L2 that stated that they were the ones who had captured the Raifuku Maru and wished to establish communications with Orb's leaders in order to discuss their current state. Uzumi had ordered an emergency meeting of the Great Houses in the situation room where they managed to set up a stable link with the source of the transmission from Orb.

When the video conference started, the five great nobles were greeted with the image of a purple-haired man in a dark green and gold military uniform that reminded them all of Unato's son Yuna. Fortunately for Uzumi, the man in the transmission, Garma Zabi, seemed to be far more diplomatic and pilot than Unato's brash son.

When they established contact, Garma greeted the leaders of Orb and explained the rather bizarre nature of the current state of affairs, how he was the prince of a nation called the Principality of Zeon, one that was ripped across space and time from a timeline called the Universal Century where mankind was united in a one world government and most of humanity lived in space, to the current Cosmic Era. While there was heavy skepticism among Uzumi's peers at the first mention, Garma transmitted to them data packets that showed the exact history of the Universal Century and visual proof of the existence of Zeon's colonies within L2, a feat which no other nation on Earth could replicate.

To Uzumi's great relief, Garma explained how the appropriation of the _Raifuku Maru_ was a misunderstanding due to his father closing down Zeon's borders in the belief that they had been attacked in biological warfare by the Federation, the _Raifuku Maru_ was only taken into custody for violating a no-fly zone that they had no knowledge of.

Uzumi was even more elated when Garma said that Zeon would be releasing the ship back to Orb with no desire for a ransom. The lack of monetary payment was a development of great joy to the nobles, especially Hayato as his ship would be returned without damage or cost to his company.

Once they had settled the Raifuku Maru controversy, the two sides began to converse on their respective histories and the current state of affairs in the Cosmic Era. Garma had said that at the moment Zeon was focused on regaining stability and order within their colonies and merely wished for the other superstates of the Earth sphere to be aware of Zeon so that they could begin the process of diplomatic relations and integration into the Earth sphere. However, such a task was near impossible due to the calamity that ZAFT had inflicted upon Earth in the past 24 hours.

"So you have not been able to make contact with the leadership of any members of the Earth Alliance?" Garma asked with worry.

Uzumi shook his head, "No Lord Garma, we have tried multiple times but all we are getting is scattered panic on the civilian channels and affirmations on all military lines that martial law is now in effect for each of the members. Each of their presidents were in their respective capitols at the time of the attack, and all should have had ample time to evacuate to a secure location. It is most likely they are in too much of a panic to worry about conversing with us, though perhaps if we were to inform them of Zeon's existence then they would notice."

Garma responded with a grim look, "Still, Admiral Lutjens made contact with the East Asians in L4 hours after the event, so the Alliance should be more than aware of our existence, yet we have not received any communications besides the fleet L4 fleet. My father does not see this as a good sign for the near future."

"Lord Garma, have you used all methods of communication to contact the PLANTs. On Earth we have found that we can no longer reach large portions of the planet with radio transmissions, so perhaps their new weapon is responsible for the lack of communication between the PLANTs and Solomon." Keiko piped in.

"We had attempted every form of communication Lady Keitamura, and while my brother Dozle has confirmed that radio transmissions have not reached the PLANTs, all other forms should have gone through. You would think that the appearance of an asteroid and a fleet almost equal their entire space force would cause them to send a transmission or some ships to investigate, but we have received complete silence from the PLANTs similar to the Alliance. I am afraid that if new developments are not made soon then we will have to engage in some gunboat diplomacy to force them to recognize our existence." Garma said.

The casual usage of such a phrase greatly worried Uzumi. He had just managed to establish peace between Orb and Zeon, though all of it would be meaningless if war were to occur between Zeon and either Zaft, the Alliance, or both. Millions of lives would be lost over a stupid misunderstanding. What would this say about humanity of the Cosmic Era, that they were so irrational and bloodthirsty that they would attack a nation that did not exist days ago? Madness!

"Lord Garma, there is no need to resort to such brute methods of force to establish contact with ZAFT and the Alliance. The Earth sphere has been on edge for the past six weeks due to the war. People are treating it as if it is some race conflict to determine who shall dominate humanity with moderation and avocation for peace being dead since Bloody Valentine. ZAFT's attack on Earth has severely escalated the conflict to harsh extremes with Blue Cosmos likely using it to paint Coordinators as inhuman monsters while radicals in the PLANTs are vindicated over their stances of racial superiority.

Such actions by Zeon, even if they are benign in nature and completely understandable due to the state of your nation, could be interpreted as acts of war by taken by either side if they still believe Zeon to be the other party. I would ask that for now Zeon focuses on protecting its territories and re-establishing domestic tranquility while we act on your behalf as mediators and introduce the Principality to the Cosmic Era. Your sheer existence is one that defies conventional science and will be dismissed at first glance by most, but if Orb were to show the world that Zeon does exist, then cooler heads may calm down and all participants in the current war shall greet Zeon with an olive branch instead of bloodshed. War is already a terrible plague, but to have one break out due to stupid misunderstandings would be the worst tragedy in both of our histories." Uzumi said.

Garma contemplated his words for a few moments before showing his agreement with a soft smile. "You are right Lord Uzumi. It is unfortunate that Zeon has entered the Cosmic Era in its most volatile time in decades, though we cannot control whatever space-time anomaly brought us here and must make the best of it. We of Zeon also wish for peace, however we have just now torn off the shackles of Earth's tyranny and with our independence now secured for countless generations, my people shall protect it at all costs. If either the Alliance or ZAFT treat us with hostility, then I'm afraid that many of our citizens would call for extreme measures in order to protect the freedom that they have desired for generations.

You have given me much to thank about and I am grateful to Orb for greeting us with cordiality and respect. I would like to ask for a small recess in our conversation to report what we have discussed to my father. If there are no pressing concerns, then I might be able to convince him to join us in a direct conversation. I would also like for you to meet my eldest brother Gihren, since as Prime Minister he represents the will of the people and would be in just as equal of a position to discuss Zeon's policy as my father."

Uzumi bowed his head slightly in appreciation, "I would love nothing more than to meet Zeon's head of state. I shall ask the Foreign ministry in the meantime to double its efforts in making contact with the Alliance. If we're fortunate then we might be able to make contact with the Equatorial Union, Scandinavia, Africa, and Oceania and direct them towards Zeon. If all of the neutral states advocate for your existence, then the Alliance will have no choice but to initiate dialogue."

Garma smiled, "We would appreciate that greatly. Orb has made an outstanding impression and the sons and daughters of Zeon shall remember the kindness and generosity of the Great Houses for years to come."

"No Lord Garma, we thank you for taking the initiative to greet us in peace and for returning the _Raifuku Maru_ without compensation. Orb shall look forward to engaging in relations with Zeon for many generations to come." Uzumi said.

The transmission then ended, and Uzumi sank back into his chair with a loud sigh of relief. A heavy air was lifted from the situation room with tremendous stress released from the five house heads.

Koto was the first to break the silence, "I have to say that this was the best possible outcome for a first contact." He said rather frankly, nods of agreement flooding the table.

"I must say that you have truly earned your moniker of the lion, Lord Uzumi. History shall remember you as the man that integrated Zeon into the solar system." Unato said, though whether his praise was genuine or empty flattery as he usually gave, Uzumi did not know.

"Still, this shall all be for nothing if either ZAFT or the Alliance attack Zeon as confusion for the other. If only they were inserted at the start of the year, then maybe their presence could force both sides to calm down and this cursed war would have never taken place." Uzumi said, internally cursing at Zeon's appearance being the worst possible moment. They could have entered the Cosmic Era at any point in their history, but they had to appear on the eve of a tragedy that shall most likely eclipse Bloody Valentine.

"You are correct Uzumi, I don't believe that the Alliance shall attack due to East Asia engaging openly with them and Pezun being the only Zeon presence in Alliance territory, but Solomon is within PLANT space and for now we must act on the assumption that PLANT sees Zeon as an Alliance creation." Hayato said.

"What I find really disturbing about their timeline is that their Third World War ended in a nuclear exchange that far exceeded the Kashmir exchange, not to mention their existence of a nuclear Indo-Pakistani war and usage of tactical nukes and dirty bombs during the Unification Wars. This has likely given them a culture of casual nuclear exchange that could see Zeon launch nuclear strikes on the PLANTs if they are attacked." Keiko said, greatly fearful of a second Bloody Valentine.

Uzumi frowned at the hysteria, "I don't think that we should be jumping to conclusions and assuming the worst of Zeon. They choose to engage in diplomacy and treat us as an equal despite our obvious difference in power, something that is rare in exchanges with the other nations on the best of days. Not only that, but they are freely returning the _Raifuku Maru_ without any demands on our part. If Garma is any indication then the rest of his family must be as benign in their character and rule." Uzumi argued.

"Yet Garma himself admitted that with the Principality being free from the Earth Federation that his people may act rashly in order to protect their newfound independence. An accidental strike on their ships could in return guarantee severe escalation from Zeon as they would view it as an attack on their existence." Kato said as devil's advocate.

"Speaking of, what do you think about his explanation of the Universal Century. It's quite obvious that the boy is heavily biased in his viewpoints. Is this Earth Federation really as evil and oppressive as he claims or is Zeon inflicting a martyr's complex on themselves without justification?" Asked Unato.

"For now we must act on the assumption that what Zeon says is the truth of their history. Unless more of their colonies are going to pop into existence, there is no Earth Federation to defend themselves and we may never get the whole picture of what went on in that timeline. Let us focus on establishing peaceful relations with Zeon, afterwords we'll have all the time we want to investigate their history and judge who's right and wrong." Uzumi said.

"Besides, is it really that implausible? Every other nation in this world has the blood and suffering of millions as the foundation for their creation. We only exist as a nation because we were driven from our homeland by China's disgusting imperialism. If East Asia and Eurasia play race wars so casually with their subjects, whose to say that in another path of history that humanity would unite into a one world government in servitude of an oligarchical elite?" Hayato argued, drawing heavy agreement around the table while Uzumi stayed silent.

While Uzumi abhorred the actions of the Reconstruction War that saw his family flee from Japan to Orb, and he was certainly no fan of East Asia, the Chief Representative felt that it was pointless to continue to dwell in hatred over events of half a century ago . Such hatred would only lead to more conflict and suffering with China's conquest of Japan and Korea being caused by generations of bad blood between the three countries. If Orb were to coexist in peace with East Asia, then both nations would have their hatred be extinguished and they could live together in prosperity instead of laying down the sins of their ancestors on the next generation and continuing a cycle of hatred.

Unfortunately it seemed that his peers did not share his sentiments with the other house heads living with a toxic "Us vs them" mentality. Whatever the case, it would be best for Uzumi to let his feelings rest for now and focus on the issue of Zeon. As they say, you had to pick your battles and Uzumi had years of experience in such a manner.

"There is one last thing that bothers me, though." Kato said with a cough.

"What are you referring to?" Keiko asked.

"While it's good that we are moving forward to bring Zeon into the Earth sphere, the supernatural nature of this event should not be possible in the first place. Not only did tens of millions of people on Earth collapse at the same time, but according to Garma, Zeon experienced millions of their own citizens traveling across the Earth sphere instantaneously and being dropped into their homes as they left the Universal Century. Millions of people within Zeon seem to be experiencing bizarre symptoms similar to those who collapsed on Earth. Not to mention the whole nature of their transportation.

If it was simply a space-time anomaly, then presumably it would affect Lagrange 2. Yet Zeon's asteroids and escorting fleets in L4 and L5 were transported along with an asteroid colony in the Belt. I don't know if this is the work of some divine force, but _something_ or _someone _has chosen to transport Zeon and all of its people to the Cosmic Era. Whose to say that we shall not be receiving more unexpected guests from the Universal Century or other timelines, or that parts of our timeline may be transported to other realities?"

Kato's words brought about a deathly silence to the situation room, a full minute passed as each noble considered the ramification of Zeon's existence. Uzumi's thoughts drifted to Cagali, and how she may be involved in all of this.

Uzumi was by no means a religious man, only paying lip service to the Shinto faith. However, the sheer impossibility of what was occurring convinced him that it had to be the work of some divine power. The fact that such power existed scared Uzumi to the core.

Not wanting those present to descent into unnecessary debates of existentialism, Uzumi intervened. "As it has been said about the Earth Federation, I believe it's best if we leave the investigation of what caused Zeon's existence until after they have settled into the Earth sphere. Whatever the cause is, it is beyond our control. All we can hope is that such an event doesn't occur in the near future. Instead of worrying of what's to come, let us focus on the present."

**A/N: There we go everyone, Zeon and Orb have engaged in peaceful first contact and are now aware of each other's existence, a small blessing for Zeon considering at this time they are about to be in a war with both the Alliance and ZAFT. Considering the fact that it's Garma leading the negotiation and he's dealing with a neutral pacifistic nation, the conclusion was rather obvious from the start. Orb is rather fortunate that they are dealing with the youngest Zabi rather than the rest of the family. Lastly Garma's success in negotiations should be rather natural not only due to his lack of aggressive intentions, but the fact that this is the same man who convinced Australia to support Zeon in its majority AFTER BRITISH. Garma is about to gain a rather positive reputation inside of the Cosmic Era and upcoming events shall keep him as a big player on behalf of Zeon.**

**By the way, in order to prevent any confusion, Keiko Keitamura is an OC of mine and the fifth Great House head of Orb. She's a Coordinator who is the most pro-ZAFT of Orb's leaders, and will be shown more prominently along with Hayato Fuzan, my other Orb noble OC, in the future as we explore Orb's politics and society.**

**Next chapter shall be released after Gihren's Glory chapter 45 and shall cover the entirety of the Battle of Pezun. We are now in the middle of the First Contact arc and soon we shall reach the end of the First Contact War and begin covering the immediate ramifications of Zeon's existence on the war and greater Cosmic Era. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	12. Battle of Pezun

_"If there is one great tragedy about the Battle of Solomon, is that it's existence was unable to prevent the Battle of Pezun. Under any normal circumstances, the dozens of strategic and tactical nuclear explosions initiated by Dozle Zabi at the battle should have been detected by long-range satellites and communications in L1 and Luna. The existence of not only multiple nuclear detonations at the supposedly ZAFT asteroid, but fusion detonations, would have then given EASC great pause and doubt of Pezun being a "ZAFT" stronghold, calling off the operation and preventing the battle from occurring._

_Unfortunately for the East Asian Space Force, Dozle Zabi's liberal usage of Minovsky particles prevented any detection of nuclear explosions outside of L5, with Zeon itself being completely unaware of the battle taking place until communications were re-established with Solomon. If Zum City was unaware that nukes had been launched, then it would be impossible for East Asia or the rest of the Alliance to notice as well._

_While Dozle Zabi made the correct tactical decision to create a heavy Minovsky density to protect Solomon and the 2nd Fleet due to having no knowledge of ZAFT's capabilities beyond their being populated by Coordinators and the N-Jammer, such a decision would lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Battle of Pezun, both East Asia and Zeon._

_Of course, cynical military historians will probably state that even if Dozle did not use any Minovsky particles at Solomon, then East Asia would have still launched an attack on Pezun due to some bizzaro justification on how the nukes were elaborate tests or the battle itself was some sort of internal conflict for ZAFT. While I would like to believe that this would be highly improbable, the rather irrational and out of touch personalities that dominated the leadership of not only East Asia but the greater Alliance, both within and outside Blue Cosmos, would make such a case sadly realistic."_

_-The Forgotten Member: East Asia's role in the Earth Alliance." by Satoshi Yang. CE 116_

**April 2nd, 70 CE. 1350. L4. Third Person POV**

In deathly ignorance the titanic East Asian fleet of 2600 ships made their way on a direct course for Pezun with the intent to nuke the "ZAFT" fleet that threatened L4.

In accordance with the plan, Admiral Tang Wei contacted Admiral Lutjens and told him that they would be reinforcing the L4 cluster to defend them from ZAFT, all in the belief that Lutjens was desperately keeping up a lie of being an officer of Zeon to protect his weakness.

In response to the communication, Lutjens acknowledged the East Asian movements and wished them the best of luck on their operations, being completely honest and unaware of the deceit that he had been trapped in.

Convinced that they had fooled the "Coordinators", Tang began the next step of the trap, to send 400 Azure mobile armors, 60 of which were armed with nuclear weapons, and send them to a "ZAFT" pocket to test the nukes and wipe them out. For the 400 pilots selected, it was a virtual suicide mission whether ZAFT or Zeon. Still, the pilots willingly went to their near certain deaths as they believed that success would be the first step in avenging their brothers and sisters lost in Earth orbit, along with their hundreds of millions of countrymen suffering on Earth.

The Azures set course for a fairly lucrative target, 22 Musais and 7 Chivvays, a task force that was on the edge of the security perimeter surrounding Pezun.

As the Azures flew closer to their target, confused panic swept through the fleet at the provocation. The Rear Admiral in charge of the task force desperately demanded the Azures to back off as they were violating Zeon sovereign space, while at the same time asking Lutjens for permission to fire. Lutjens did not give permission in return as he believed this to be a misunderstanding and he did not desire to start a conflict with a nation that had not existed two days ago. Lutsjens sent several transmissions to Tang, asking for him to take control of his mobile armor, but all he got was silence in return.

At this point the task force admiral began deploying his Zakus while spreading particles and preparing megaparticle canons. Unfortunately for the admiral, it was too late.

As soon as the Azures got in range, they launched a massive barrage of hundreds upon hundreds of missiles with the nukes clustered in between. Due to the Minovsky particles just barely beginning to spread, the Azures radar worked perfectly with the missiles dumb AI locking onto the ships.

In eighty seconds after launch, the missiles found all of their targets with dozens of tactical nuclear explosions lighting up the Lagrange point. All ships were vaporized with what little remnants being nothing more than twisted scraps of steel.

Only a handful of the task force's Zakus would survive, with all of them being gunned down in short order by the Azures, making the massacre complete and total.

Among the East Asian fleet, the communications burst with loud cheers and hollers of victory, the entire fleet being jubilant over their gambit having apparently worked with undeniable proof that the "Coordinators" did not have N-Jammers, leaving them open to attack.

Unfortunately for East Asia, they had not waged war on ZAFT, but instead launched a brutal massacre of a fleet of the Principality of Zeon. The East Asians had marked their own graves.

**ZSFS Ares. Wilhelm Lutjens.**

**"EARTHNOID SCUM!"** Howled Admiral Wilhelm Lutjens in the most vile black venom. It was a sentiment that was shared by hundreds of thousands of Spacenoids across the fleet as they had just watched over three thousand of their comrades in arms be wiped out in an instant by a surprise attack launched by the East Asians that they had supposedly made peaceful first contact with the day prior.

_'Once an Earthnoid always an Earthnoid, fucking trash.'_ Thought Lutjens, sneering loudly over the crime inflicted upon Zeon. It appeared that no matter the timeline, those who had their souls weighed down by gravity would always seek to crush the Spacenoids under their boot and heel. In his contact with East Asia, Lutjens had done nothing but act in the most diplomatic manner that he could think of, staying within the near space of Pezun and respecting East Asia's sovereignty surrounding their colonies. Despite his cordial demeanor, East Asia had sought to do battle with Zeon and launch a first strike through nuclear fire, going for WMD's straight from the get go.

Deep within Lutjens, a small part of his conscience had chided him for his anger as Zeon would've acted similarly within Prussian. Lutjens did his best to shake off the dark thoughts and focus on the task at hand. Prussian was a horrific plan, but it was a brutal necessary to secure their independence from the Federation by crippling their presence in space. Here Zeon was the clear victim, and as such they must inflict justice as swiftly and harshly as possible to avenge those lost in the surprise attack.

"Raise Minovsky density to combat levels, deploy all Zaku squads throughout the fleet! Battlegroups Alpha through Kilo, commence megaparticle barrage to soften their numbers!" Lutjens barked in rapid succession to respond to the outbreak of battle.

Within seconds his orders were broadcast through the fleet with his words becoming action as the over 1200 ships began to implement the command. Dozens upon dozens of green megaparticles raced across the field and began to strike the vanguards of the East Asian fleet, many hitting their mark while a few completely destroyed their targets.

The East Asian fleet began to fire back as well, though their lack of long range through their plasma beam canons meant that their hit ratio was less than Zeon's. This would slightly be offput by the missile and railgun compliments which were being used to their fullest due to the lack of high Minovsky density at the current point.

Acting quickly to formulate a strong counterattack, Admiral Lutjens pulled up his command console and analyzed the battlefield to find any potential weaknesses within the East Asian fleet while making sure that no blind spots for Pezun were being presented.

To Lutjens' surprise, he found the East Asian fleet to be extremely thin, with several dozen formations being spread out over a thousand kilometers instead of bunching up in a tight and compact line as the Earth Federation Space Force would have done. Such a tactic would've been the logical course of action as it would allow East Asia to best press their numerical superiority and overwhelm the 3rd fleet through overwhelming firepower through a distance, eliminating a plurality or possible majority of the fleet before they could create a heavy Minovsky density or deploy their Zakus to rush into the East Asian fleet.

Unknown to Lutjens, the East Asians were deployed in such a manner in response to Operation Uroboros. A majority of the casualties on the Alliance in that battle had been due to their tight formations which allowed ZAFT ships and GINN's to take out dozens of ships in a single strike. Here their lines were thin with dozens of flotillas and taskforces so that the death of one would not mean the destruction of the entire fleet.

Seeing as how his enemy was deliberately dividing itself, Lutjens' brain began working rapidly to come up with a clever ploy that could keep the East Asians isolated and separated despite their numerical superiority.

After half a minute of thinking, a concrete plan formed for Lutjens with him typing it in a flash on his console. Seeing his mental gymnastic's on the computer's display made Lutjens heavily confident in what he had created, sure that it would lead Zeon to victory.

With his heart set, Lutjens began relaying a new set of orders.

"Transmit message to the entire fleet, Sierra through Yankee are to be deployed to Pezun and act as its shield. Vice Admiral Malishev is to take take command of what is to be hereby dubbed the 'Pezun Fleet'. Tell Molenshav that he is to engage in turtle defense and from there act as he sees fit.

Alpha to Romeo are to head ninety six degrees in pursuit of Bogey 50, the enemy formation which I have highlighted at the center." He said, clarifying to his communication officer what he had meant by sending him the data on the command console to his terminal. After quickly looking over the packet, the officer gave an affirmative that he had been understood.

"Alpha through Romeo which shall be known as the Mars Fleet, is to proceed to Bogey 50 in a spindletop formation no greater than fifty kilometers wide and twenty kilometers high. All ships are to maintain 5% Minovsky density at all times, which is to rise to 10% once we reach within forty kilometers of Bogey 50.

Once we begin spindletop formation communication shall be tight so from there on we are to undergo relay communications. Mobile suit teams are advised to act with full autonomy as they see fit on the battlefield.

Men, to quote a wise and ancient King, we may not have started this war, but we shall sure as hell end it. SIEG ZEON!"

"Sieg Zeon!" The bridge crew of the Ares shouted in affirmation, hundreds of replies shouting the same to words within the next couple of minutes as confirmation.

After roughly twenty-five minutes of organization, the Pezun fleet began to make its way to guard the asteroid while the Mars fleet began their march towards East Asian lines.

Among the numerous historical feats that would be performed that day, the greatest of the Battle of Pezun would be an act that would be studied by military officers of the Cosmic Era for generations as a viable strategy to win against a numerical superior force, the Lutjens maneuver.

**PLSF Wuhan**

When the Zeon 3rd fleet had split into two, Admiral Tang had moved quickly to respond. Believing that with nukes in play that any sort of numerical superiority would grant East Asia a quick and decisive victory, he had sent a third of his fleet to target the Pezun Fleet and the base itself, while the remaining 2/3rd's would take on the incoming spear that was Mars Fleet.

Half of the Azures had been deployed and were moving in a grand pincer attack to hopeful keep the Zeon fleet contained and away from the East Asian lines while long-range bombardment would seal the victory. The closest East Asian flotillas and task forces began plasma volleys while the more distant groups of ships used their rail guns, hoping that kinetic momentum would allow them to hold onto target.

On the bridge of the _Wuhan_, a East Asian battleship of the _Beijing_-class, Senior Captain Huang gave off a deathly glare.

_'Burn in nuclear fire you space monsters.' _He thought in cruel pleasure, feelings of ecstasy climbing as he watched a series of nuclear explosions at the rim of the Mars fleet.

A two decade long member of Blue Cosmos, Huang was one of the organization's many plants within the East Asian fleet. While East Asia's Naturals as a whole were heavily against Coordination, they were not as bloodthirsty as large segments of the Atlantic Federation, many leading politicians advocating for a violent cleansing of Coordinators to create a blue and pure world.

It was the job of Huang and his fellow BC officers to subvert and radicalize East Asian command so that one day they would become stalwart Natural crusaders. After Operation Uroboros, Huang was confident that such a future was well on its way with their victory at Pezun hopefully pushing the remnants of the Beijing civilian government alongside EASC to escalate the situation so that the Bloody Valentine nuking would be repeated dozens of times.

While Huang was slightly concerned that the Zeon fleet seem to be headed towards his way after initially heading on course towards the center of the fleet, he felt confident that the 150 tactical and strategic nukes within his group would be enough to destroy the spearhead, allowing his men to fall back and be reinforced to meet the Coordinators head on.

When the Mars fleet got within fifty kilometers of Huang's group, he gave off a Cheshire grin, his greatest contribution to the cause about to take place.

"Began total missile bombardment onto the enemy. After our missile pods are cleared begin a withdrawal to 200 klicks to the rear. Recall all mobile armor units and hail the _Sonbong_ and _Ye Ting_ to have their groups unify with us." Huang ordered.

He waited several seconds in heavy anticipation, the continued existence of the Coordinators in front of him being pure agony to the bigoted officer. Half a minute passed, but no missiles were launched.

Huang's mood quickly soured into fury, veins popping out of his head while he stared down the weapons officer with death in his eyes, "Lieutenant, why did you DISOBEY MY ORDER?! Defiance during battle is treason with the punishment of death!" Huang yelled, silently grabbing hold of his holstered pistol in case his subordinate was some vile race traitor.

Shaking, the Lieutenant stammered in response, "Senior Captain, I am trying to comply with your order but I am unable to get a lock onto the enemy ships. Radar is malfunctioning completely and all visual images are filled with static at best."

Huang's rage turned to horror as the situation eerily felt familiar to the effects of the N-Jammer at the orbital massacre. However, the N-Jammers had absolutely no effect on visual targeting, which was the only reason the Alliance got any semblance of casualties on ZAFT in the first place.

"Impossible, how could those cockroaches have improved their superweapon in less than a day. Of course they could improve it within a day, their superhuman monsters." Huang said in a low whisper, losing all semblance of his previous composure now that the enemy had gained the upper hand.

Huang's state turned to total confusion as on the viewscreen of the bridge, he saw a couple of nuclear explosions dart across the battlefield both near the approaching fleet and of the battle taking place next to Pezun. This confirmed that the enemy either didn't have N-Jammers or they weren't working.

"How?" Huang asked, though he would never receive an answer as within seconds he along most of the _Wuhan_ would be vaporized by an incoming megaparticle barrage, dozens of beams turning the ship into little more than twisted scrap.

In less than a minute the _Wuhan_ group was completely obliterated, their surviving mobile armors meeting the fate of complete destruction through quick strikes by the Mars' fleets Zaku escorts.

While East Asia outnumbered Zeon in the battle 2 to 1, the separation of their fleet into several dozen independent groups turned the tide against them as the Battle of Pezun was not two fleets facing off against each other, rather it was two titanic Zeon fleets conducting dozens of battles against isolated and trapped East Asian ships wherein each engagement saw Zeon outnumber the enemy by at least double digits.

This was the beauty of the Lutjens maneuver, gaining numerical superiority despite being lower in pure mathematics.

**MS-06C Zaku II Johnny Ridden**

With his ship the ZSFS _Guadalcanal_ being part of Taskforce Tango, Johnny Ridden was one of the hundreds of Zaku pilots within the Pezun fleet who had to face off against the breakaway East Asian forces.

At the moment Vice Admiral Molenshav had elected to have X-Ray and Yankee stay behind to hug Pezun and spread particles. The purpose of this was to aid Pezun in covering the asteroid's immediate airspace in near total Minvosky density so that it would not be hit by East Asian fire, a high probability due to its status as a stationary target. As such, Sierra through Whiskey was sent to fight the East Asian forces straight on, a lopsided fight in ship numbers that was fortunately helped by the East Asian's strange insistence to keep as much space between each other as possible.

Thanks to this, the Pezun fleet was able to take on the isolated pockets head on with the destruction of two pockets already occurring. The Pezun fleet was at the moment charging towards a third, with Johnny dashing through the battlefield alongside his squadron to take down as many East Asians as possible, their eyes set on one of what command presumed to be their carrier class.

_'How the hell could this have happened, are these people truly so awful that they'd fire on a nation that didn't exist two days ago?'_ Johnny lamented.

Here he was not fighting against the accursed Federation which he had sworn to do battle against for Zeon's independence, instead he was fighting against people from another dimension who decided to nuke them in a surprise attack despite first contact seemingly going so well.

_'Even the damned Feddies had more honor than this crap.'_ Whatever their reasons for the despicable attack, all the East Asians here would either at the end of the day be dead or prisoners if Johnny had anything to say about it.

Not having any clue about the general layout of the enemy ships, Johnny decided to go for an obvious blindspot and weakness by aiming for the engines. Using his Zaku's speed to push past the ship, Johnny then activated his verniers and swerved the Zaku to face the rear of the ship, firing several rounds of his machine gun as the momentum of his acceleration pushed him past the ship and increasing out of range of the ship's AA guns.

Once he was a couple of kilometers away, Johnny pushed his verniers to full throttle to make another attack run. This time Johnny grabbed a sturm faust from his Zaku's rear, and taking aim he launched the rocket straight at the dead center of the ship, causing an intense explosion which with his earlier shots destroyed the carrier's drive.

In quick succession after using his sturm faust, Johnny switched back to his rifle and unleashed several dozen rounds upon the side of the ship, at the same time dancing his Zaku up and downward to avoid any incoming fire.

Just as he passed the ship, Johnny felt a bolt of lightning surge through his body, causing it to tense in high alertness. In an impossible sense of awareness, Johnny swerved his Zaku and pushed it back several meters. This allowed him to narrowly survive an incoming Azure which had charged Johnny straight on with its barrels blazing. The mobile armor pilot was either suicidal or incredibly brave.

Whatever the case, Johnny's close evasion allowed him to keep track of the mobile armor and fire it without fear of retaliation, the last rounds of his magazine tore the Azure into shreds.

"How the fuck did I know that was coming?" Johnny asked himself. Ever since the event strange things had been happening to him. When he was unconscious he saw some sort of vision of him fighting on multiple battlefields over a period of several years. When ZAFT attacked the Earth Johnny, along with thousands of others in the fleet, had felt immense pressure on their pain, as if they experiencing the sufferings of millions.

Then, as the battle began, Johnny's mind and body felt a state of incredibly clarity and awareness, himself sensing multiple events across the battlefield in a manner similar to what had just happened.

These events caused Johnny's mind to drift to a topic that Kycillia seemed to be obsessed with at great length. From what he had remembered on her tales of the Flanagan Institute, it seemed that Johnny had all the symptoms of being a Newtype, the chosen Spacenoids that were proclaimed by Zeon Deikun to be the next step in humanity's evolution.

_'But Kycillia said Newtypes were born that way and I didn't experience anything like this until after the event. Did coming to the Cosmic Era make me one?'_

Whatever philosophical ramblings Johnny wanted to explore, a sensor alert of a nearby Zaku explosion brought his mind back to the battlefield. For now he had to focus on surviving and eliminating the enemy. Whatever questions he had about his possible status as a Newtype he could ask when he met Kycillia again, another reason to return alive to his fair princess.

For the next three minutes, Johnny worked together with his squadron to completely eliminate the carrier and its escorting mobile armors. During this time Johnny had racked another three mobile armor kills and had landed the finishing shot on the carrier before it collapsed, marking his first ship kill of the battle.

With all visual signs of the battlefield being moped up, Johnny began to return to his ship to rearm when his newfound powers began to kick in again, alerting him to a nuclear explosion of a Musai that was seventeen kilometers to his right.

Cursing East Asia for what was not the first and definitely not the last time that day, Johnny ordered his squad to head out and eliminate the East Asian attackers, himself charging as soon as he finished the transmission.

Moving past the fiery wreck of the Musai, Johnny spotted at least eleven Azures who were preying upon the survivors like vultures. Two Zakus were all that was left from the ship, which soon turned into one Zaku as one made exploded right as Johnny arrived while the other attempted to make a desperate last stand with an anti-ship rifle.

Low on ammunition and wanting to rely on the Zaku's superior speed, Johnny grabbed his heat hawk and turned it on. The Azures were so focused on the lone Zaku that they were oblivious to Johnny's incoming presence. This gave Johnny the element of surprise with him slicing two Azures in consecutive order. This tore the Azures attention off of the surviving Zaku, with the arrival of Johnny's squad further decimating their ranks.

Flying circles around the Azures, Johnny killed another Azure and used the remains of the armor as a temporary shield to block the incoming fire of one of its comrades, pushing the armor to it and then circling around the rear to slash his heat hawk through the machine. Just as the fight was dying down, Johnny received another flash, kicking his verniers to reverse and just barely avoiding several canon rounds with two lightly scrapping his Zaku's chasis.

Johnny turned his Zaku towards what appeared to be the last Azure and was about to confront it, only for the Azure to be shredded by an anti-ship round. Johnny moved his Zaku's camera and found it came from the surviving Zaku.

After making sure that there were no more East Asians left, Johnny glided his Zaku towards the survivor and initiated skin touch.

"The names Lieutenant Junior Grade Johnny Ridden, I'm the squad leader of the _Guadalcanal's_ Zaku compliment. I take it you're the last of your ship?" Johnny asked.

"Unfortunately, we had just finished destroying one of their cruisers when that squad came out of nowhere and blew the ship to kingdom come. Most of my squad was unfortunately within the hangar so they were caught in the blast radius. I'm afraid I'm all that's left of the _Trier_. Name's Lieutenant Breniss Ox."

Johnny frowned at the information. While the Zeon space force had expanded rapidly in the past few years and was gargantuan in size, it was a close-knit brotherhood of millions of men and women all dedicated to the cause of Zeon's independence. Johnny had a few good friends on the _Guadalcanal_ and the ship as a whole was somewhat of a family. For this Lieutenant Ox to have lost them all in an instant must have been the devastating experience.

"Sir, I can't bring back your comrades, but what I can do is give you a promise that if you come with us back to the _Guadalcanal_ then we'll help you kill as many East Asians as possible. Those Earthnoid bastards will wish they never laid a hand on the _Trier_." Johnny said.

Johnny received a low laugh on the other end, "Sounds like a pretty good deal to me Ridden. Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted. Since you're my superior in rank would you like to take command of the squad?"

"I appreciate the offer Lieutenant but it's your squad they'll work best under your lead. Just consider me a helpful stowaway who wants to land a hand."

"If you insist sir." Johnny said, wanting to make sure that there'd be no conflict of authority. With the confirmation, Johnny and Breniss went to the _Guadalcanal_ to resupply. It was in this moment that the Crimson Lightning gained one of his closest friends.

**MS-05B Zaku I. Ramba Ral.**

As part of Lutjens' strategy for dealing with the enemy, two mobile regiments of Zakus from the Mars Fleet would be sent off independently to take out nearby flotillas and taskforces that could act as reinforcements for the Mars fleets targets. The purpose of this was so that once the Mars fleet was finished in eliminating its target through overwhelming firepower in megaparticle canons, it could continue on to face its next target with little opposition.

Through dumb luck, Ramba Ral's squadron was chosen to become one of these regiments, which at the moment was engaging 17 East Asian ships and their mobile armor pilots along the right flank of the Mars fleet.

_'If this is how the East Asians are against the Zaku then it makes you wonder how the Federation would've fared.'_ Ramba thought, firing a rocket from his bazooka near point blank to an unsuspecting Azure, causing the mobile armor to explode with Ramba then traveling to assist two Zaku-I's and a Zaku-II to eliminate an enemy battleship.

Going into battle Ramba thought the Admiral's plan was rather reckless in using the Zaku regiments to deal with entire enemy groups alone. However, it seemed to be paying off handsomely as the mobile armors were being swatted down in quick succession by the Zakus while the enemy ships laid helplessly as sitting ducks against the mobile suits with little to no protection against mobile suits.

This was quite apparent when Ramba was able to fly multiple circles around the opposing battleship with little to no risk of damage. His fire along with his comrades proceeded to tear apart the ship with its destruction being total in less than two minutes.

Once the ship was destroyed, Ramba helped to destroy a nearby cruiser with the kill marking the virtual end of the engagement as all nearby East Asian ships were either destroyed or on its way there.

As Ramba attempted to make his way back to the Chivvay he was based on, his screen was lit up as he saw a handful of Zakus a couple dozen kilometers in front of him get disintegrated in a nuclear explosion.

"How many nukes do these fuckers have?!" Ramba asked in rage. So far it seemed that the main cause of death for his fellow soldiers of Zeon was a demise by nuclear fire as hundreds of nuclear explosions had been inflicted upon Zeon lines since the start. In their assaults on the enemy nukes had been withheld on the regiment as it would have been a waste to launch one for mobile suits alone. It seemed however that the survivors had no restrictions and sought to take down as many Zakus as possible.

_'I swear it's like they emptied Luna II's stockpile and decided to launch some fireworks.'_ Wanting to avenge his fellow pilots, Ramba scrambled to meet their killers as quickly as possible.

To his surprise, it seemed that he was met with only one mobile armor, the single ship wielding the power of the atom.

"I'll send your GINN straight to hell space monster!" The pilot barked over the radio.

Another nuke was launched towards Ramba, though the audio had given enough time to easily evade the missile's trajectory, itself going further into deep space.

"This is a Zaku boy! A Zaku!" Ramba yelled over the open comm, speeding far past the Azure and then firing his bazooka toward the mobile armor. It hit the armor dead center with a small nuclear explosion being created. Fortunately for Ramba his Zaku's shielding protected him entirely from the radiation.

"Why the hell did he call me a GINN?" Ramba asked himself in puzzlement. Shrugging the matter aside, Ramba made course towards the fleet for resupply. With fatigue starting to set in, Ramba began to daydream of a certain blonde beauty.

**ZSFS Ares. Wilhelm Lutjens**

In the past hour and a half it seemed that Wilhelm's plan had gone off without a hitch. The main factor that allowed his success was his usage of Minovsky particles. While his ships had maintained a consistent level of 10% in its immediate area, the close formation of the spindle caused the particles of hundreds of ships to group together into a massive cloud that covered the fleet at all times. While communications were hell at the moment, it allowed for a near perfect cloak to protect the fleet from East Asian sensors, ensuring that their fire would completely miss.

A tactical nuclear explosion occurred on the fringe of the spindle, claiming a Chivvay with the visual sensors of the Ares capturing the grim moment for a few seconds.

_'Well almost.'_ Lutjens thought sadly.

Practically the only factor that gave the East Asians a bone left in the fight and allowed them to take so many Zeon lives was their swarm of nukes at disposal. While Lutjens had not refrained from nuclear usage with dozens of tactical and strategic nukes being used by Zeon so far, it seemed that for every Zeon nuke there were twenty East Asian nukes that were returned at minimum.

_'What the hell is with this timeline, not even the Federation was this nuke crazy.'_ Lutjens thought. From his conversations with Chen, it seemed that the Alliance had been extremely weary on using nukes after Junius Seven, not they were using so many nukes that it made the Soviet-NATO exchange in WW3 look tame in comparison.

"Continue firing the megaparticle canons, I want to see the East Asians turn into Stardust!" Lutjens yelled, doing his best to motivate his crew to continue their best.

Within a couple of minutes his wish was granted as the enemy that they had faced, a total of 32 ships, had been completely obliterated with the few mobile armors left being moped up by hundreds of Zakus. After the first few engagements were the remaining Azures had launched suicide missions with nukes to take out as many Zeon as possible, the fleet's Zaku pilots learned to not take the mobile armors as a joke and to be as brutal in combat as possible.

"Sir, the fleet to our rear is changing position, it seems they are headed in entirety for Pezun." His sensor officer alerted.

The data was sent to Lutjens were it showed an estimated 800-1000 ships abandoning the immediate battlefield and headed for the asteroid, most likely to overwhelm it in numbers and bathe the base in a nuclear shower.

Grunting at the move, Lutjens did his best to adapt, "Send a transmission to taskforces Echo, Hotel, Mike and Quebec with orders to detach and engage the remaining survivors to our galactic north. The rest of the fleet is to shift directions and chase after the rear enemy."

Within ten minutes his orders were carried out with the majority of the Pezun fleet giving pursuit of their numerically superior foes while the detachment began to form together to take the remaining pockets head on.

So long as Pezun held then the Battle would be a sure Zeon victory.

**MS-05B Zaku I. Ramba Ral**

Unfortunately for the breakaway portion of the Mars fleet that Ramba was apart of, it seemed that the East Asians had finally realized that their disunity would become their death. While the Mars fleet was busy reorganizing, the East Asians had retreated and coalesced their units into a single fleet that was near equal in size to the breakaway taskforces.

Was this meant was that instead of the swarm rush that Zeon had been utilizing until now, a more conventional battle was taking place with the Zeon and East Asian ships facing each other down in lines reminiscent of Napoleonic warfare. Plasma and Minovsky beam weaponry danced across the field with East Asia adding in missile and railgun barrages. While the Minovsky particles caused a majority of the firing to miss, a few met their targets and casualties began for Zeon.

While the normal strategy would be for the Zakus to infiltrate enemy lines and eliminate the enemy ships in quick order, the high amount of nuclear MA's caused Ramba and his colleagues to focus on wiping out as many Azures as possible. If just a single one broke Zeon lines then it could easily mean one of their motherships facing death by nuke.

Mobile suit and armor engaged each other in an epic clash by the hundreds. The engagement was a brutal sign of the Cosmic Era dogfight, a deadly tango across the great vaccum of space where any second death could strike at a pilot.

In the midst of all of this carnage was Ramba Ral, using only his heat hawk for fear of a stray round causing friendly fire. Like a horseback knight of the Middle Ages, Ramba was a fierce cavalry that cut down all Azures who stood in his way. Over time his kill count of the engagement easily grew into the double digits. This caused many of the Azures to shift their attention to Ramba alone in a desperate bid to overwhelm him in numbers. While the Azure pilots thought of themselves as dragons of space, before them stood a terrifying demon, no a _blue giant_ that crushed all that stood in its way.

With so many East Asians focused on Ramba, this freed up dozens of Zakus to rain down fire upon the enemy. In the course of twenty minutes, most of the mobile armors were cleared from the battlefield, the remainder being hunted down or retreating to the safety of their ships in a desperate bid for a safe haven.

With little danger from the enemy mobile armors, the Chivvays, Musais, and the occasional Gwazine unleashed devastation upon the East Asian lines. Towards the mark of the second hour of the Battle of Pezun, the first surrenders began as over a dozen East Asian ships, knowing that no help would come, transmitted their defeat to "ZAFT" in hopes for mercy from the presumed Coordinators.

Here Ramba's role in the First Contact War would be paused momentarily as the breakaway ships were too far to reinforce Pezun. On that day, Ramba Ral began his rise through the ranks of Zeon and so marked the beginning of House Ral's redemption.

**MS-06C Zaku-II Johnny Ridden**

So far it seemed like Johnny's decision to invite Berniss into the squadron was one of the best he ever made. While Johnny was not someone who could be described as arrogant or boastful, before the Battle of Pezun he saw himself as one of the best mobile suit pilots within all of Zeon, a claim that he could easily back up with action. As good as Johnny was however, Breniss seemed to be of an equal or even higher footing with the slavic spacenoid easily earning the ace moniker on the battlefield.

With every action that Breniss took there was zero waste in battle. The Zaku pilot moved precisely and seemed to glide across the battlefield with ease. Every shot that he took landed on its mark with Johnny never seeing any misses. It didn't matter who he faced off against, Breniss always found his mark. Such an example of raw marksmanship made Johnny slightly jealous, for while he was a master at speed with few equals he could never get such precise aiming even with hundreds of hours of practice.

Such accuracy made Johnny wonder if Breniss was a Newtype. Since Johnny had achieved his potential, he had felt dozens of other presences throughout the fleet who were similar or above Johnny in prowress. When Johnny's mind attempted to subconsciously probe Breniss to see if he was like him, he felt nothing in response. If Breniss truly was an Oldtype, then his raw skill alone could make him the best of Zeon's pilots.

With the addition of Breniss to the squad, Johnny had changed tactics to divide his team into two. Johnny and three other Zakus would engage the mobile armors directly and serve as a shield for Breniss and a second Zaku that would serve as snipers to strike down the East Asian ships at a safe distance. Once the mobile armors in the immediate vicinity were cleared then Johnny and the others would join Breniss to finish off the remaining ship. Afterwords they would find a new target and then rinse and repeat.

This strategy had been pretty successful so far with Johnny's squadron sinking a grand total of twelve ships after Breniss had joined. Johnny had no idea how command would calculate ship kills, but if he had to guess then Johnny would most likely have four by now.

Right now Johnny's squad was working on lucky number thirteen, one of the hammerhead carriers that from the influx of transmissions seemed to hold some sort of leadership role in the fleet.

Fortunately for Johnny, one area where the Zaku absolutely excelled against the Azure was at agility. While the Azure was close in acceleration, it was hell for the mobile armor to evade or change direction with the designers clearly relying on strength in numbers rather than the individual skill of the pilot.

This allowed Johnny to easily dodge their attacks, his Newtype senses adding a warning factor that prevented any element of surprise from being achieved.

At the moment Johnny was attempting to finish off one of the last mobile armors. His foe seemed to clearly understand his weaknesses as rather than engage Johnny closely, he tried to keep as much distance as possible and only fire in tight sweet spots where he would circle to target Johnny, then back off to escape.

While it was probably too much to focus on one mobile armor, the seemingly infinite nuclear stockpiles of the East Asians meant that each armor was a potential nuke that could wipe out a Zeon vessel. As such unless the pilot was surrendering, it was best to wipe out all mobile armors within the area.

After wasting several rounds on the armor, Johnny decided to switch tactics and one of his three sturm fausts. Taking careful aim and relying on his newfound powers to act as a silent spotter, Johnny took careful aim and launched the rocket onto the mobile armor's trajectory, killing it on contact.

After Johnny had finished the armor, he felt a flash go through him, and turned the Zaku to face the enemy, only to find it be taken out by a giant anti-ship shell from Breniss.

"Thanks for the save Ox." Johnny said over the open comms, getting a static welcome in reply.

With the last mobile armors getting cleared out, Johnny pulled out his heat hawk and got to work on turning the East Asian carrier into scrap, marking his fifth ship kill of the day.

After another hour, the East Asian fleet detachment at Pezun had their numbers little down to the double digits. With the remainder of their forces engaged with the Mars fleet, some of the more sensible captains began to transmit surrender signals, though a few more erratic Blue Cosmos aligned officers swore to fight to the bitter end.

Just like dozens of other legends, the journey of the Crimson Lightning would begin on April 2nd, Cosmic Era 70.

**ZSFS Ares. Wilhelm Lutjens**

"Admiral, the last of the hostiles have been eliminated, With the surrendered ships maintaining protocol, the East Asian fleet is no more!" The communications officer alerted, with his proclamation soon followed by numerous shouts of "Sieg Zeon!" to celebrate the final victory.

Reclining in the command chair, Lutjens popped off the helmet from his normal suit and gave off a great sigh, taking a deep with of the ship's air as he did so.

Fortunately for the Mars fleet, they had managed to catch the East Asian reinforcements in time thanks to the superiority of their Minovsky drives, allowing them to continue the same strategy as before and eliminate all East Asian ships one by one until the remaining hundred either surrendered or made one suicidal charge to take down as many Zeons with them as possible.

With the sheer magnitude of East Asian casualties, Lutjens had no doubt that Zeon was officially the dominant power within the Cosmic Era. If this was the best that one of this timeline's Big Three could do against Zeon with a two to one advantage, then the Earth sphere was as good as theirs and Side 3 would reign as the undisputed masters of space from Luna all the way to L3.

_'Then again, perhaps victory would be theirs if it was not for the good old Professor Minovsky.'_ Lutjens thought glumly. While he thought that his leadership was excellent and the performance of his men undeniably exemplary, at the end of the day it was the Ukranian's particles that won the day, their usage being the key to his strategy.

Thinking further about Minovsky physics, it made Lutjens curious why the Cosmic Era had never discovered it before today, or the fact that they never created nuclear fusion.

While their genetics with the creation of Coordinators along with the strange superweapon that knocked out Earth's power pointed to some areas where the Cosmic Era was superior to the Universal Century in science, nuclear fusion was something that was invented well before the Universal Century, the first successful test being in 1999 right on the eve of the Federation's founding.

The Cosmic Era may not have ever had a third world war, but surely that change in history alone wouldn't prevent fusion from being invented, if anything the hundreds of millions of lives that never died should've ensured a quicker and more rapid proliferation of fusion technology. Such an advancement should've been prioritized considering this timeline's obsession with nuclear power if the thousands of East Asian nukes were any indication.

Whatever weirdness took place, perhaps Lutjens could count it as a hidden blessing as no nuclear fusion meant no discovery of Minovsky phsyics, a concept which even in the Universal Century was a near miracle considering Minovsky being the only one with foresight of the concept. Such a technological path lead to Zeon's victory today at Pezun, and for the next couple of generations would undoubtedly mark them as the premier superpower of the solar system, a status that the Spacenoid nation rightfully deserved after decades of suffering at the hands of the Federation.

Lutjens then began to take off his normal suit and transition back to his regular uniform, until an alert by his sensor officer stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Sir, 300 East vessels closing in at 1500 kilometers."

**PLSF Peng Duhai. Chen Baoyi**

On the bridge's viewscreen, Admiral Chen Baoyi could do little but stare grimly at a rather depressing sight. When the battle had started, the successful nuclear detonation being the signal for Chen to reinforce as ordered, there were 2600 ships with Chen's fleet making the East Asian forces a near 3,000. Now, four hours in and with the L4 Fleet just barely arriving onto the battlefield, there appeared to be 800-900 Zeon ships left while there were barely somewhere between 100 to 200 vessels left for East Asia, at least those with power on as there were several hulks that had no power and could either be dead completely or simply a crew of survivors who were struggling within cold space.

"We were too late." Said Captain Jun Jie, the younger officer looking away from the viewscreen in shame at the inability to aid their brothers and sisters in arms.

Chen reached out with his right hand and comforted the Captain on his shoulder like a father would to his son, "We were not too late happen, we were simply spared a massacre that would've taken our lives." Chen said.

What the Admiral spoke of was a truth that had been ingrained within the minds of the fleet since the battle started. Even if the fleet they were facing was truly from ZAFT, their performance in the orbital massacre would've ensured that any victory would be extremely pyrrhic at best. If the L4 fleet were to join in now then at best they could claim a couple dozen Zeon ships, but overall their numbers would still remain strong while the L4 ships were wiped out down to a few survivors.

"Is there any way for us to escape? Perhaps we can chart course for Earth orbit and slingshot back to Luna." Jun offered, trying to see some form of survival for the fleet.

"None captain. At our current distance, it will only take a couple hours for the enemy to catch up to us. Our only hope is to run now and hope that the enemy's command is indecisive enough to provide a narrow timeframe for escape." The connsman said, all energy and enthusiasm drained from his voice.

Seeing how decisive their victory was and with sensors indicating a shift to react to their entrance, Chen doubted that the enemy would suddenly become so incompetent to ignore them unless a sudden decapitation of command were to occur within the next minute or so.

"Sir, did we just lose to ZAFT or Zeon?" Jun asked quietly.

"What was that Captain?" Chen asked in return, this being the first vocal questioning of the enemy fleet's identity since they had received their orders from EASC.

"If we just lost to ZAFT and are about to do battle with them, then I can at least take comfort in sacrificing my life to bring down as many Coordinators as possible so that Luna can be protected and the Alliance can come back. If it was Zeon that we lost to however, then we just nuked a new and neutral nation with our forces receiving annihilation in return." Jun said, a soft shack to his voice at the implications the latter statement had.

While his subordinate's words could be seen as demoralizing and out of conduct for a captain of the fleet's flagship, what they did was to help Chen firmly see the big picture and form a conviction that he should have maintained yesterday.

If this was a ZAFT fleet that was facing them, why did they not use their superiority in numbers to eliminate Chen's fleet and take control of the L4 cluster? Why did they take part in such a farce charade when it was a tale of the highest fantasy? Why did they not include their N-Jammers within the new stealth ships and only send older converted freighters to launch the operation to cripple Earth's energy? How did they get so many resources to build two new fleets and grab pop new asteroids into existence?

With each further question, Chen believed, no _knew_ that this was not ZAFT and this was truly Zeon.

Today the Republic of East Asia had committed a grave crime. Chen could only hope and pray that this would be merely a dark stain on his nation's history rather then the beginning of its end.

Realizing fully what he had to do, Chen turned to Jun with a sad smile, "Thank you for giving me clarity Captain. Just know that what I am about to do, I shall take full responsibility."

Before Jun could ask what his superior meant, Chen turned to the communications officer, "Send a transmission to the Zeon fleet. I, Admiral Chen Baoyi, formally surrender the 9th fleet of the People's Liberation Army Space Force of the Republic of East Asia."

Thus, the Battle of Pezun was brought to a close.

**A/N: Here we have it folks, the Battle of Pezun. With it comes the end of the first half of the First Contact War and the beginning of the rest of the Cosmic Era finding out about Zeon's existence. Please leave feedback on the battle scenes as it will help me to greatly improve going forward.**

**The next update will come after Gihren's Glory chapter 46 or 47 and will cover Talia's time as a prisoner aboard Solomon and ZAFT's immediate reaction to the battle. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	13. The Impossible Nation

_"__Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed" (John 20:29)._

**April 2nd, 70 CE. 1900 Colonial Standard. ZAFT Command. Aprilius One. PLANT. Siegel Clyne POV**

In the past two days the situation regarding the war had gone through a roll coaster from fear, terror, jubilation, anxiety, and now utter horror and panic. While Siegel didn't like to use vulgar language, he had to admit that the shit had hit the fan and everything was going to hell.

When Siegel had launched the fleet against the Alliance asteroid, he had expected a victory for ZAFT. In his worst fears there would be heavy casualties with dozens of ships and mobile suits destroyed, but with the N-Jammer they could at least bring a swift end to the battle and secure the PLANTs from threat of destruction.

Those hopes were dashed when hours ago he and the rest of the supreme council received word that not only had nuclear explosions been detected in the middle of the battle, but that these explosions lacked fissile material. Somehow, someway, the Alliance gained nuclear fusion.

When the council had heard about it they entered into heavy panic for ten minutes, acting as if it was the end of days. Eventually Siegel along with Patrick managed to restore order, with Patrick guiding them to the situation room of the ZAFT command center, with the situation now requiring that the council have instant access to communications and intelligence instead of debating in a bubble.

Once they had entered the situation room, Patrick managed to take quick leadership and was now the dominant voice of the council, quickly gaining power as if he had homefield advantage. While Siegel would normally assert his role as supreme chairman, this was a desperate time that was clearly more in Patrick's field, and thus he relinquished informal command to him for the time being.

The first thing the council had decided upon was to alert the public of the asteroid and its fleet, along with the fact that they achieved nuclear fusion. While reports from law enforcement told of panic and hysteria gripping the colonies, it was necessary at this time to come completely clean and divulge the truth so that they could prepare for the worst. Now the PLANTs had gone near silent, with all of its citizens either hunkered down in their homes, at work in ZAFT or in government critical jobs.

If any sign of an attack were to take place, then as many citizens would be evacuated to the newly-erected bunkers where they would hopefully be safe from an attack, They didn't have the time or space to save every citizen, but they could at least save a couple million in the worst case scenario.

One of those potential evacuees would be his daughter Lacus, as Siegel had ordered his aids that they were to evacuate Lacus as a top priority with a reserved spot and keep her in the bunkers no matter what she said, as Siegel was more than experienced in how much of a free spirit she was. Siegel was well aware that this was nepotism and unfair to many common citizens who could possibly be locked out, but in the end he didn't give a damn. Lacus was his entire life, he would suffer a thousand deaths before he ever let anyone harm his precious angel.

After the public had been informed and order had been restored with the emergency facilities online, the council then came to the discussion of military strategy. Thanks to the recall of the Uroboros fleet, they now had near 1400 vessels around PLANT space. Unless the Alliance brought the majority of their fleet, then there was a good chance they could win any offensive.

Right now there were two heated topics at hand. The first was the drafting and total mobilization of the PLANT civilian population suggested by Patrick. Any citizen with training in space would serve ZAFT in their ships or as a mobile suit pilot. The rest of the civilians who were non-essential would either be put into armament industry, or join an emergency militia to train to defend their homes in the case of an invasion.

The second topic was the abandonment of the Lorentz Base, suggested by Ali Kasim. With the threat of whatever was in L2 looming alongside the rest of the Alliance forces in their traditional lunar bases, it was probable that Lorentz had no way of holding against the Alliance hordes, especially since they now had nukes. Kasim wished for the fleet to return to bolster their defenses, a sound move though this was argued against by some as giving up their only stronghold on the moon that would leave them isolated in L5 for the rest of the war should they destroy the asteroid facing them.

"If we evacuate from Lorentz then we are going to be playing into the Natural's hands by giving them a war of attrition while eliminating our ability to launch offensive operations. Not to mention that doing so while cutting off our allies from Earth, will deprive us of our lunar mining operations. It's going to be weeks until the next asteroid comes into the Earth sphere and we need lunar metals if we are to feed the war machine. This isn't some last stand for prestige, it's a vital part of the war effort!" Ezalia said.

"Mining resources and supporting our allies won't mean a damn if the Alliances waltzes in tomorrow and nukes us to kingdom come! 200 ships could mean the difference between the life or death of the colonies, and you would risk our entire existence over nonsensical strategic hypotheticals that won't come into play for weeks or months at least!" Argued Parnel Jesek.

"Funny, because I could have sworn you said the same thing about hypotheticals that won't matter in the present when you argued against the draft and mobilization of our population. What use is the service sector or the unemployed going to be lying around when they could defend our nation and improve the defenses to a point which we would have had if we recalled the Lorentz flee?" Ezalia retorted.

"That is entirely different. Those 200 ships will make an immediate difference and will turn the tide of any battle as they are filled with trained and crewed men and women. Drafting civilians isn't going to do a damn thing when the Alliance launches an attack in the coming days as they will be untrained lambs sent to the slaughter!" Parnel fought back.

Jeremy rolled his eyes and heavily scoffed at the statement, "Maybe for Naturals, but we're Coordinators! In a week we can train someone to at least the minimum potential of a Natural soldier who has gone through bootcamp. There is no adult besides the misfits who aren't fit for duty. We could gain millions of soldiers to defend our colonies and at the same time add a couple new fleets. Yet you would prevent this massive gain of manpower for some petty desire of normality?!"

The debate continued on for some time, with the mobilization and Lorentz withdrawal both nearing majorities. Siegel for his part was conflicted as he saw merits and good arguments on all sides. For the most part he tried his best to keep everyone calm and level headed, an effort that was nearing failure at the moment.

In addition to the heightened tensions, none of the council members had gotten a healthy amount of sleep in the past two days. Even with their augmented bodies they were still human and needed rest. By now Siegel had drank an entire pitcher of coffee in the last couple of hours with caffeine being the only tool keeping him awake.

In the middle of another tense round of debate, all eyes turned to the door of the situation room where Eileen Canaver walked in. Eileen had taken a short period of absence a while ago to address a situation with the Intelligence Bureau. When she had come back, Eileen looked deathly pale with her body shaking, looking far worse than she had in the aftermath of Junius Seven or the appearance of the asteroid fleet.

"Eileen, is everything alright?" Yuri asked in concern. What he didn't add was the fear that had been instilled in the other eleven members of the council, that the war had somehow gotten worse than the Alliance gaining nuclear fusion weaponry.

"I...I I was asked to c-come to the bureau because they wanted my input of something which had torn the monitor section in two." Eileen said, her voice shaking and spoken weakly at the same time. "A lot of the personnel stationed there said that it was nothing, a nonsensical Alliance lie, yet some of their superiors were adamant that it was real. If they had told us sooner then...th-then we could have prevented this from happening." Eileen said, tears forming in her eyes.

"What are you talking about?" Demanded Patrick harshly. Siegel would have rebuked him but Eileen then continued on.

"Apparently hours after the asteroid made its appearence within the Lagrange point we received a series of messages from the asteroid that continued until the battle had started."

"WHAT?! How the hell were we not made aware of this?" Patrick growled, causing Eileen to look down in slight shame.

"Patrick! Eileen is speaking and until she is finished with your explanation you will remain silent as is proper decorum." Siegel ordered, with Patrick reluctantly backing down and Eileen nodding towards him slightly in gratitude.

"What I am about to reveal to you is a massive failure on the intelligence bureau's part, I admit so and I will take full responsibility as it falls within foreign affairs. The reason why this unfortunately never made its way to us was because the communications contained contents that were deemed far too ludicrous to be taken as a legitimate message, some sort of Alliance trick to buy time. In any other situation I would have likely agreed, though the usage of fusion weaponry despite Earth still lacking power gives heavy reason to the message. I shall play it now."

Quickly typing away at her console, Eileen began to play a video on the main viewscreen of the situation room, all twelve members shifted their seats to look at what was being played. On screen appeared a giant of a man wearing a green and gold uniform with spiked amulets. His face sported a number of hideous scars and he wore a gray mullet. All in all this was far from what your average Alliance officer would have been.

_"Greetings to the unknown Spacenoids who reside within the hourglass colonies. I am Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, head of the Zeon Space Attack Force, commanding officer of the Solomon base, and second son to Sovereign Degwin Sodo Zabi, the ruling monarch of the Principality of Zeon. All of these words most likely sound gibberish to yourselves, however there is a good reason for doing so. You see, my men and I are not from this timeline, rather we are from a timeline called the Universal Century, a world where after the third world war the Earth was united into a single nation called the Earth Federation, who then proceeded to colonize the Earth sphere and deport a majority of its population to the Sides, creating the Spacenoid nations such as Side 3 or Zeon, who resides in Lagrange 2."_

This "Dozle" then spent the next ten minutes going over a summary of the "Universal Century" and how in his words they came to be transported to the Cosmic Era. He had ended the message with wishes for the establishment of peaceful diplomatic relations and coexistence so that the two Spacenoid nations could help each other survive and prosper within the Earth sphere.

The room was silent for several long moments, though to its occupants it seemed like ages before anyone would speak.

_'My God, if this is all true then we attacked on a neutral and independent nation, one that hasn't even existed for two days in this timeline. A nation with a past similar to our own that has fleets of mobile suits and nuclear fusion weapons.' Siegel thought, increasingly horrified at the current predicament.'_

"Bull. Shit." Patrick hissed venomously, fury raging through his body at the message. "Do any of you seriously believe in this crap?! A nation suddenly crosses space time and comes to our timeline and somehow they have fusion weaponry and mobile suits? It's just the plot of a bad B-movie! Obviously this was some sort of Natural trick to get us with our guard down and nuke us from existence."

Eileen looked at Patrick, a newfound determination flaring in her eyes, "Patrick, I would think that as the head of ZAFT that would know basic military strategy. They have a fleet out there near the size of our own with mobile suits and fusion nukes yet this 'Alliance fleet' choose to sit around and twiddle their thumbs while Uroboros was happening instead of preventing it or taking revenge? Don't even start with the stealth nonsense, even if they have a stealth system that broke the earlier battle shows its not needed. Why even bother to send a message at all when they clearly are the superior fleet in force? Why not send in reinforcements from L2 and L4?"

"I agree that rationally their strategic decisions are idiotic, but an enemy with a better fleet doesn't automatically mean dimensional travelers." Patrick retorted.

"A few months ago if anyone had presented us with the N-Jammer we would've laughed it off and called them insane, yet within our arsenal we have a weapon to completely shut off fission and flick the bird to physics. If we can do this then anything is possible. Hell, earlier we were so heavily considering the possibility of aliens, why not a nation from a different dimension?" Eileen argued.

"Just as you said, we created the N-Jammer, so it's not impossible for the Naturals with their plethora of resources to create stealth fleets or have fusion nukes within the cards. Instead of entertaining fantasies, let's focus on reason and logic." Patrick returned.

With the council once more descending into heavy bickering, Siegel prepared himself with a newfound resolve to take charge of the situation once more and get to the bottom of this mysterious Zeon. If this was truly some Alliance plot, then they would simply proceed as before. But if Zeon truly did exist, then he had to do everything in his power to resolve this conflict immediately and get peace.

**April 2nd, 70 CE. 2247 Colonial Standard. Talia Gladys POV**

When the war had started between ZAFT and the Alliance after the Alaska Declaration, there was a brief window of rationality within the PLANTs. While most Coordinators living within the new nation had suffered from discrimination by Naturals in one form or another over the course of their life, most of ZAFT with the exception of the most fearful and paranoid had believed that the war would be a conventional conflict of independence. Sure it would not be a pretty or civilized affair, but it would follow most of the patterns of historical independence wars that would see ZAFT drive the Alliance to exhaustion and force them to concede to PLANT's independence.

This optimism died entirely after Bloody Valentine, with the war changing from a conflict of colony against colonizer to a war of rice, of survival.

A consequence of the war's shifting tone was the subject of what to do in the possibility of being captured by the Alliance. Given that all of the conflict until now had been fought solely in the open vacuum of space, most Coordinators who would not see victory or successfully retreat would run away, but there was still the possibility of being surrounded by the Alliance and being forced into a situation of surrender.

When it came to Talia's fellow captains, a disturbing rise had taken place where many had been adamant that they would fight to the death, to take as many Naturals with them as possible. In the situation of being forcibly captured such as mobile suits being disabled, some ZAFT personnel went even further with Talia accidentally eavesdropping a conversation between two Greencoat pilots of possibly ingesting cyanide pills to avoid capture.

Fortunately, up to Uroboros there was a majority who like Talia were willing to become prisoners if there was no other option. Among this school of captains there was a ranking desire. First would be Eurasia, where at least there they would attempt to follow the Stockholm Convention. The second would be East Asia, they would most likely be treated with scorn and disdain but could at least be afforded some status of being a prisoner. Third was South Africa, who while not openly touting to the policies of Blue Cosmos were too much under the Atlantic Federation's influence to guarantee the lives and wellbeing of any Coordinator prisoners. Last was the Atlantic Federation. While there was always a likelihood of there being many moderates within Atlantic leadership that wanted to follow Stockholm, the possibility of being brutally interred by a Blue Cosmos group was high.

Then again, there had been less than a thousand ZAFT personnel leading up to Uroboros who were prisoners, so there was still a possibility that all of these scenarios were nothing more than figments of paranoia in Talia's mind. Still, rumors and speculation always had layers of truth embedded in them and Talia had no desire to find out.

As for her interment with Zeon however, well it was honestly one of the best cases she could ask for.

After surrendering to the red Zaku that she would later learn would be the mobile suit of Char Aznable, there had been a short but tense period where the Georges Danton was left to its own devices while the rest of the battlefield died out. During that time Talia did her best to manage the repairs of the ship and treatment to the wounded. Fortunately for her, while Hector's injury was severe, the timely treatment applied to him would ensure that he would live and recover. While there were nineteen members of her crew who had been killed, at least Hector along with a few others would still live and return to see their families should they be released from Zeon captivity, whenever that would be.

They waited for about three hours until a large green shuttle landed itself in the bay of the ship, what she would later learn to be Zeon's _Komusai_.

The squad of Marines that had inhabited the shuttle demanded that Talia come with them to Solomon where she would be held captive for an indefinite period of time. To her crew's credit, they protested greatly to the request, with a few even offering to take her place, something that warmed Talia's heart greatly. In the end she had complied with the demand of the Marines. If she made a struggle now after surrendering then it could lead to severe repercussions for her crew and the other ZAFT ships that surrendered. All that was left to do now was to comply as much as reasonably possible and hope for the best.

After a short ride (along with other Komusais that she observed in the distance, most likely with the other captains), Talia had arrived at Solomon, undocking at one of the asteroid's hangars and then being escorted by the Marines to a cell where after taking off her normal suit, she was held captive with two armed guards waiting outside.

On the way to her cell, Talia did her best to observe the mood and attitudes of the Zeon servicemen and woman stationed aboard the asteroid. Seeing their high diversity that eclipsed even the Atlantic Federation and Eurasia, along with their universal devotion to wearing green and gold, it was quite obvious that this was not an Alliance base. Such a sight further drove into Talia the foolishness of Fukuyama's actions.

What she also noticed was how the men and women who noticed her looked at Talia. What she saw there were faces of hate and anger, but they were not those she had been abused with while growing up on Earth. The faces she saw were not full of the irrational and animalistic disgust that filled so many Naturals in their treatment to Coordinators, rather they were anger filled with grief, confusion, and frustration. These people were not wroth with Talia over her genes, rather it was due to her uniform and the actions that ZAFT had inflicted upon Zeon.

_"Outside of the heavy political differences that came within a one world government, there are many societal differences between the Universal Century and the Cosmic Era. The first of which is that there was never a George Glenn and as such there is no concept of Coordination."_

The words that Dozle Zabi said during his brief attempt to make peace with the fleet continued to ring in Talia's head as she sat glumly within her cell. In another timeline humanity had never unleashed the Pandora's Box that was Coordination. Since there were no Coordinators that existed, there was no reason to hate what had until just recently for Zeon been nothing more than fiction.

The fact that Dozle tried to initiate a peaceful first contact and open relations with the PLANTs gave Talia some sliver of hope that maybe there was still a chance for peace with this new Natural nation. Dozle had said that the Universal Century had gene therapy, so maybe they were trying to reach Coordination but didn't have the miracle formula that was George Glenn's DNA. Were there people within Zeon who would openly embrace Coordinators and point to them as the future? Or was it a nation full of potential Blue Cosmos recruits who would see the Cosmic Era as a timeline tainted by the genetically augmented?

Talia was left to ponder this question for a while before her guards opened her cell door, the first time they had done so since delivering a light dinner. They motioned to Talia to get up from her bed. After she did one of the guards moved forward and placed handcuffs on her, with Talia then being motioned to follow the lead guard. When Talia asked where she was going, all she received was the simple reply "Questioning". Expecting this, Talia then went silent and moved along with her current fate.

If there was a positive, the fact that they only placed handcuffs on her was somewhat of a warm sign. With Coordinators being physically superior to Naturals, it was a common belief by the later that Coordinators were beings of super strength from comic books, that they could bend steel and lift cars with ease. There were many Coordinator criminals who were restrained through transfer chemical injections that made their bodies limp thanks to heavy doses, while their cells had several centimeters of steel aligning all walls.

Such a belief was nothing more than an outrageous superstition in truth. While there were some Coordinators who were capable of such feats, they were a high rarity among the overall population with most Coordinators merely having the bodies of professional Natural athletes. Capable of strong feats to be sure, but nowhere near the hysteria that they were suspected of.

Talia herself was far extraordinary with her max bench press being 150 kilograms. There was absolutely nothing that she could do to escape these handcuffs unless she had an amazing moment of adrenaline, even then Coordinator bodies were still made of flesh, and as such she would be easily struck down by bullets while attempting to escape.

After eight minutes of travel, Talia was led to what appeared to be an interrogation room, with her being forced to sit in silence at a metal table for a minute until the door opened once more, revealing the titanic figure that was Dozle Zabi.

If Talia had to guess, Dozle probably wanted to make an intimidating entrance meant to scare Talia into cooperating. Unfortunately such a move failed when attempting to enter, Dozle hit the doorframe head first.

"Motherfu-! Every. Single. Time!" Dozle cursed, then muttering heavily under his breath, being completely oblivious to Talia's presence for a short period while he nursed his forehead.

Dozle's appearance was in a way quite amazing to Talia as she had never before witnessed someone with gigantism before, something that could have easily been removed had he been born a Coordinator. Dozle's large muscular frame seemed to be the perfect fit for Blue Cosmos' propaganda of Coordinators being brutish monsters. Fortunately his rather cumbersome entrance had removed a high chance of Talia being scared by looks alone.

Once Dozle's pain had receded, he then seemed to remember the purpose of his visit and gazed upon Talia with embarrassment, scratching his mullet at the same time.

Wanting to segway into a hopefully productive conversation, Talia did her best to remain stoic and attempted to initiate dialogue. "Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi, I presume?"

The mention of his title caused Dozle to lose his awkwardness and shift his attitude to a rigid and professional manner. "That is correct. And you are Talia Gladys, the captain of the ship that Char captured." Dozle said, sliding into the chair opposing Talia. In his left hand he brought onto the table a large bulky tablet, something that Talia would have guessed to be a suitcase where it not for the visible screen.

"Sir, I would like to ask if you have read about the Stockholm Convention that we have currently been fighting under in our war with the Alliance. I know that Zeon is not a signatory to the agreement, but I sincerely hope that since you are now residents of the Cosmic Era that you may follow the Convention's rules and guidelines." Talia said, hoping that she was not being too brazen with the Zabi.

Instead she observed what appeared to be a pleased smile make its way onto Dozle's lips. "I haven't had enough time until _your people unjustly attacked,_" Dozle began with Talia wincing at the mention of the battle and the tone Dozle used for it, "to read up on the finer details of the Cosmic Era's history, so I have no idea of the existence of this Stockholm Convention, though it has been mentioned by some of your peers." Dozle said, alerting to Talia that she was not the first to be interrogated.

"The Stockholm Convention is basically an update of the classical Geneva Convention, which I presume exists in your time unless the divergence between our worlds was before the 20th century. The reason the convention took place in 44 CE was to mainly prevent the atrocities of the Reconstruction War, particuarly the Equatorial-East Asian war from repeating, creating a comprehensive series of rules for how to deal with insurgents, and most importantly how to wage war in space." Talia informed with Dozle nodding along.

"From what I can gather so far, our timelines mainly converged sometime in the 1980's of Anno Domini, so we're not too alien from each other aside from the existence of Coordinators like yourself. For over a century the world fought under the nominal influence of Geneva until the first year of the Universal Century when the Federation created the Brussels Convention. This was mainly a legal gathering to stipulate how the Earth Federation would fight the nation-states that had refused to surrender their sovereignty during the Unification Wars. Since the Federation was proclaimed to be the only legal human government, then its opponents were rogue states and as such an argument could have been made for abandoning the Geneva Convention entirely, though fortunately the Liberals pushed for certain rights and rules to be recognized.

For now until we can force ZAFT and the Alliance to recognize our existence, we'll treat the both of you with the Geneva convention." Dozle said. Talia sighed in relief at the words, though she did not hear how Dozle mentioned the Alliance, alluding to the Battle at Pezun.

"Truth be told, I am rather pleased that you have enough sense to recognize our existence. A couple of your comrades were still in denial at first, believing that we were some Alliance unit that they had surrendered to." Dozle said, with Talia lowering her head slightly in shame.

"I presume this is why you attacked us despite my efforts to open up dialogue? Because you believed we were part of the Alliance?" Dozle asked harshly, with Talia nodding in response.

"If the reverse had occurred and we had somehow been transported to the Universal Century, would you first believe that we were a secret Federation cluster or a nation from another timeline composed of transhumans?" Talia asked, with Dozle simply responding with silence.

"I know my words are practically meaningless, but I am truly sorry that we were lead into this conflict and I was forced to take the lives of those who served under you. Up until the very end, I had thought that your fleet were forces of the Earth Alliance, that I was fighting not only for my life, but for my son back home and for all Coordinators like us. I don't know what Zeon went through in the Universal Century, but for us this isn't just a simple war of independence, it's one of survival, for the existence of our race. An Alliance fleet with an asteroid and mobile suits seemingly parked on our doorstep would have spelled the end for us. Thus we attacked, and so many lives were lost needlessly." Talia said.

Looking at Dozle, she saw a change in the demeanor of the man in front of her, a softening of his face which hardened into something that seemed to be respect.

"I see, so you and most of your comrades were simply pawns in your government's plan, with your leaders either entirely ignorant or simply tricked themselves into believing that we were the Alliance?"

"I'd like to think better of the men and women we elected into office along with those who lead ZAFT, but I have no explanation for why they never responded to your communications, so for the moment it appears so." Talia said, internally cursing the idiots who had charged in blindly to this great mistake.

"Captain, as a prince of Zeon whose people have suffered so long under the boot of the Federation, I sympathize with people like yourself who fight for their independence from gravity's tyranny. If you had not attacked us without reason, then perhaps we would have greeted you warmly as fellow Spacenoids in arms. Still, for as much as I despise the Federation, I would never once think that in defeat that they would wipe us from existence. Why do you use such extremes?"

Talia was puzzled by Dozle's statement. While she was aware by his earlier comments that the Universal Century had no Coordinators, surely he must have held some innate prejudice or fear towards transhumans? Such an attitude would explain why no one had dared created a George Glenn in their timeline.

"Admiral, if I may ask, what was your timeline's attitude towards biological augmentation and transhumanism?"

Dozle rested his head on his shoulder, thinking of how to respond. "I don't really know to be honest, that's because we never really got anywhere near towards the existence of people like you. I'd say the closest we ever got towards transhumanism was the existence of human clones early in the Universal Century, though the entire Earth sphere was pretty adamant against allowing its existence so the Federation cracked down hard on its practice and there's never been any mainstream movements since.

Perhaps crushing down such an advance prevented anyone from bothering to create augmented humans from birth like you Coordinators, but I don't think anyone really bothered. With decent wealth and proper medical care anyone can live to be a hundred, cloned organs and gene therapy can easily get rid of most diseases so we have no great viral threat. We've made rapid strides in technology in the past century so there never was a necessity to augment our mental capabilities. Perhaps it just never happened by accident, like how your timeline never discovered fusion despite its stabilization being created in the early 21st century for us."

While she was curious about how 21st century Naturals discovered the concept when Coordinators had spent half a century failing to grasp it, Talia instead decided to explain the conditions of the PLANTs and Coordinators in general.

"While I'm not so hateful as to believe that all Naturals are evil and out to destroy us, it's a sad fact that the majority either are such people or apathetic to the actions of those who seek to destroy us. Ever since George Glenn revealed himself to the world, countless people have sought to reverse the clock. There are countless reasons for our persecution such as our existence being some sin against God, a fear we'll take over and rule the world, jealousy over an inability to be born with the same abilities, an inability to cope with the changing times; whatever the reason we have suffered great pain across the globe with a majority of us being exiled to PLANT so that we could serve at their leisure and not desolate their _blue and pure world._" Talia said, sneering at Blue Cosmos' infamous slogan.

"Even in nations where we are lucky enough to have achieved some semblance of integration and normality such as Scandinavia and Orb, hate still follows and will find its way to take as many of us down as possible. The PLANTs are all we have left at this point, if we lose them, then there's no alternative accept to keep running away into the solar system."

While Dozle was doing his best to have a poker face, Talia could notice some signs of sympathy showing, a hopeful sign if there ever was one.

"So, are you now going to interrogate me for ZAFT's military secrets?" Talia said, fearful of what was to come.

To her surprise, Dozle shook his head. "No, at least not now, that'll probably be left to Kycilia's men. What I want to do here, and what I attempted to do with some of your colleagues, is to get a clear picture of who it was that attacked Solomon earlier today. In return I want you to receive an understanding of what Zeon is, our history and who we are. The purpose of this is so that I can bring an end to this damned war, and you people will be crucial in this once you have taken a visit to the homeland."

"I beg your pardon?" Talia asked, shocked at Dozle's words.

"In a few days time your ships and the crews in them will be escorted to the Principality where there will be proper facilities to keep your people as prisoners until the conflict settles. You and the other six captains however shall be undertaking a tour of the homeland, so that you can see who you fought against. Before then you shall learn about the Universal Century on this ebook." Dozle said, gesturing to the data pad he brought with him, "Once you are aware of who we are, all that's needed is for you to see Zeon to believe."

"What would be the importance of showing us Zeon?"

"For whatever reason, your leaders refuse to believe in our existence, that we are an Alliance super fleet. Once you have seen Zeon, your testimony along with other methods of proof will be sent to PLANT where they shall understand the true nature of what has taken place. If your leaders then decide to _still_ believe we are the Alliance, this war shall continue to be fought until I am pointing a gun at the heads of your supreme council and make them believe that we exist."

**April 2nd, 70 CE. Ferbuarius Two. PLANT. Third Person POV**

When the PLANTs were created by the sponsor nations, each city was forced to center itself around a single type of industry. While this type of organization was completely nonsensical to capitalist economics, it served a hidden purpose designed to keep the PLANTs in check. By having each colony's economy be solely centered on a single type of product, no PLANT could ever truly be self-sufficient and isolate themselves from the rest of the Earth sphere. With the prohibition of trade with other nations outside of the sponsor states, this essentially gave the Big Three a monopoly over the PLANT's economy.

When the PLANT's were divided, Februarius was chosen as the medical colonies. While these PLANTs had some of the cluster's highest quality infrastructure due to the sponsor states wanting to exploit the Coordinator's intelligence to cure their diseases, Februarius was the second least populated out of all the PLANTs, only above Junius.

The reason for this lack of vitality towards Februarius was due to a general sense of apathy from Coordinators towards medicine. It was not so much that Coordinators were ignorant or distasteful of medicine, as it was only through the wonders of modern genetics that they came to exist, rather it was due to a perceived lack of need to engage in and learn of medicine.

To many Coordinators, the Glenn blueprint, as they referred to the genome sequence given by their spiritual father George Glenn, was completely perfect with no need of improvement or expansion. With a Coordinator rarely getting any form of disease over the course of their life, the only form of healthcare that Coordinators would need would be from physical trauma. With this attitude, to many Coordinators a hospital was a place only fit for modifying their children's embryo's or taking care of injuries.

That was not to say there were no Coordinators interested in medicine, as hundreds of thousands of citizens within Februarius dedicated their lives to the noble pursuit of healthcare, with their crowning achievement being the creation of the S-2 vaccine.

Unfortunately, this great achievement would only serve to make medicine a profession of scorn among the PLANT's as despite the fact that they saved billions of lives, most Naturals on Earth still regarded Coordinators with hatred at worst and mild dislike at best. To many Coordinators born in the 50's and 60's, they asked themselves why they should care about being doctors when Naturals didn't want to have their lives be saved by them.

This unfortunate attitude caused many Coordinators to be blind to one of the necessities of Februarius, that being its care and services to Misfit Coordinators, a term that referred to tens of thousands of Coordinators who through complications in the coordination process, came out with physical or mental deformities.

Usually these misfits would be created due to black market coordination methods that became popularized after the passing of the Turin protocol. Without the process being conducted by proper geneticists or having the necessary equipment from a modern hospital, the coordination would usually undergo some sort of flaw that would leave the resulting child physicall or mentally disabled despite their augmentations.

To be a misfit was to live a life of sorrow, as misfits usually received intense hatred from Naturals for their existence despite them being less skilled than the average Naturals, while to a number of their fellow Coordinators they were marks of shame, mistakes that should not have been brought into the world and had no place within their society.

Inside of the Februarius Two Colonial Hospital, a doctor Shoto Aikawa looked over the file of a certain misfit within his office, that of a ZAFT pilot named Riika Sheder.

A half German half Japanese Coordinator who immigrated to the PLANTs from Munich, Riika was born with complete blindness thanks to the faulty process of Coordination inflicted upon her, with it only being a miracle that the rest of her physiology was relatively healthy. While Riika would be able to see with the usage of a cognito visor, this device would only present her vision in black and white, with minor amounts of static as if it were being presented through an old video device.

Against all odds, Riika preserved through life and became an MS pilot of ZAFT, though her disability forced her to be stationed in the Februarius Guard, making her a virtual reserve member with no hopes of frontline combat.

As her doctor for the past two years, Shoto had until now a spotless record with Riika, with herself having spotless records on her tri-annual checkups along with no fortunate harm on her vision and usage of the cognito visor. This perfect bill of health ended yesterday when Riika's squadmates found her to be suffering from a siezure in the middle of the night, then proceed into a comatose state.

To add even more bizarreness to this medical anomaly, twenty minutes ago Shoto had received an email from Februarius Director Gilbert Durandal that had warned about the influx of nearly 3,000 cases across the PLANTs were all patients who were admitted into the hospital suffered similar symptoms of either siezures or panic attacks, then promptly went comatose, all of which happened at or around Midnight on April 1st.

In all of his years of practicing medicine, Shoto had no plausible explanation for what was occurring. There was no such thing as a disease or condition that acted in clockwork and the dispersion of all of the victims made any rational cause implausible. The closest Shoto had was that maybe they were the victims of a bio attack, yet all of these victims were spread across the PLANTs and no one they were in contact with seemed to be infected.

Right now Durandal had ordered for all of the victims to be brought to Februarius discreetly and for non-personnel to be told that these were random and isolated events. With the war looking to enter into some climax, causing mass panic over a bio attack or pandemic when there was zero evidence to the cause would only be damaging to the nation as a whole. While Shoto preferred for treatment to take precedence, he could understand the logic of Durandal's order.

Fortunately Shoto would soon get his answer when his office phone range.

"Doctor Aikawa speaking."

"Sir, miss Sheder has awoken and is now fully conscious." Said one of his nurses.

"Good news, I'll see her in a few minutes." Shoto was about to hang up the phone before the nurse delivered more information.

"Sir, I would ask that you come quickly. Not only is the patient awake, but she claims to be able to not only visually perceive her surroundings without the visor, but she's also claiming to see_colors_." The nurse said in a tone of slight panic.

Shoto's body froze at the information. "What, she can see? Is this some kind of joke, her optical nerves are completely dead, no coma would be able to grant her vision."

"Sir, I am completely serious. I just finished an eye exam on her and she passed with flying colors, just as well as any regular person would." The nurse said.

Upon hearing this Shoto slammed the phone down and briskly made his way towards Riika's room to see the situation with his own eyes.

Like most Coordinators, Shoto was an atheist and as such he did not believe in the concept of miracles, an impossibility with the world being run by logic and science. Yet what he heard could be described as nothing more than a miracle, an impossibility which simply could not have occurred.

After two minutes Shoto barged into the room, two nurses were present by the bedside while an excited and jubilant Riika met his gaze, without her visor.

"Doctor Aikawa, is that you? It's so good to finally see you without that stupid visor. You look the same but you seem so alive with color. The color of your sweater, it's green right? And your paints are brown, they're dark but they don't look like black?" Asked Riika, who was letting out tears of joy over her new gift of sight.

Hearing her words caused Shoto to enter a complete state of shock. He was indeed wearing those colors, but to be more specific he sported a lime green sweater and a light brown near khaki pair of paints.

"Riika, how..how do you understand the concept of color? You're seeing for the first time, you shouldn't understand anything besides black and white!" Shoto didn't mean for the words to come across harsh, but what he said was completely true as even if she did completely regain her eyesight, she should not have been able to understand colors more than an infant.

"I don't know how, I just _know_. Something inside of me, it's telling me what all of the colors are and I know I'm right. I don't care how, all I know is that I can see!" Riika shouted in excitement.

Little did Riika know at the time that her restored eyesight was not through any biological means, and that it was not a miracle in the traditional sense. Riika Sheder was only able to see thanks to her newfound abilities as a Newtype.

**A/N: Hello everyone, Kaiser Chris here! Sorry for the long wait, though with school winding down and the lack of any travel outside with the quarantine, things should be picking back up soon. I got a lot of messages asking for my wellbeing, and just to let everyone know I and my family are healthy, though I appreciate the concern.**

**Firstly in this chapter we have the aftermath of Solomon in the eyes of the council and them being revealed of Zeon's existence, something that was tragically kept from them due to the stupidity of a few. I know it looks like the council is an erratic group of people who can't get anything done, but you have to remember that in their POV the Alliance just showed up with a fleet full of mobile suits and fusion nukes and can now strike the PLANTs and probably win at any moment. Fighting for the survival of your nation and race makes people irrational with heavy pressure. Any other day or circumstance and the council could get through this with better grace and clarity, something that might happen soon with Siegel now open to Zeon's existence and looking to take charge again.**

**Next we have Talia and Dozle's talk, which was my favorite part of the chapter and something I saw as a nice exchange between the two on their universe's outlook and the tragedy of Solomon. Now that Talia knows about Zeon she truly regrets what she did, and Dozle is well aware that it wasn't her fault but those above her. In this case Talia truly was just following orders.**

**Lastly we have an important development, the beginning of Riika Sheder's new life as a Newtype and the birth of her powers. For those who don't know, Riika Sheder is a character from Destiny Astray who was originally meant to be the pilot of the Gaia Gundam before it was hijacked by Phantom Pain. She's unique among Coordinators for having been blind from birth due to complications. However now that she's a Newtype she can now see normally, though this technically didn't heal her sight and using it has drawbacks that will be explored later. Riika will serve as a critical point of view for Newtype Coordinators and how they're handling their new or discovered potential and how they choose to move forward. She'll be a recurring character moving forward so expect more of her in the future.**

**The next chapter will come after the next Gihren's Glory update and will primarily focus on Zero Squadron as Mu and a couple of other Newtypes talk about their experiences. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	14. Mu La Flaga's First Steps

**April 1st 70 CE. 2300 Colonial Standard. Atlantic Federation Ptolemaeus Lunar Base. Mu La Flaga POV**

Immediately after Mu had woken up he was beset by a group of doctors and nurses who wished to examine him and asked numerous questions on what exactly he had experienced before his collapse into a coma.

Not trusting his caretakers with information that his future self had given him, Mu had told a half truth that all that he had seen when he had a seizure were images of a beautiful women, something that had gotten a few light snickers from the examiners, most likely lightening the mood a bit.

Overall the examination was probably one of the fastest he ever had, only taking ten minutes. The reason for the rush was due to the fact that apparently on the base _tens of thousands_ of personnel from all branches stationed there had collapsed with similar symptoms, not to mention much higher numbers within Ptolemaeus proper. Since Mu was now awake, his bed was free to use by one of thousands on a current waiting list. Thus Mu was quickly discharged with orders to rest for a minimum of 24 hours barring an emergency sortie and to immediately return if he felt any worsening in his condition.

After changing into his uniform Mu had bid his thanks and left the hospital. The blonde barely the hospital wing by a couple meters when he was suddenly tackled by a rather busty slavic blonde.

"Mu, you're awake!" Shouted his Ukrainian squadmate Kateryna "Kat"Boginskaya.

Kat was very much loved by the squad for her friendly and energetic nature, making her easy to approach to and a strong team player who had the most assists in combat. Right after Zero squadron had formed, Mu and her had briefly dated for about a month, with both ending amicably due to the beginning of the war as well as a lack of a deep connection to take things to the next level. They were still good friends though and Mu had always trusted her to have his back in battle and vice versa.

Up til now, Mu had always had a physical attraction for Kat. However when he separated himself from her, upon looking at her, he felt absolutely nothing. While he recognized that objectively she was still beautiful, there was no desire present as there was before. It was no fault of Kat's, rather now she went up against a brunette who to Mu was the most beautiful person in existence.

_'Murrue Ramius. Will I ever get to meet her, just what is it about her that makes her so perfect?'_

For now Mu pushed his thoughts of Murrue aside and focused on his good friend and squadmate who was here and now. "Hey Kat, how long was I out?"

"It's eleven at night so you were gone for an entire day. 2/3rd's of the squad collapsed, Kat was the first to wake up about three hours ago and I followed shortly after." Said Rick.

The Texan pilot had come up to Mu and offered a handshake for some reason. Mu had accepted it, only to be quickly drawn in a fierce bear hug, with Rick nearly coming to tears like how Kat was. It was strange to Mu why they were acting like this when he was only out for a day and they had just woken up before him.

"Hey, are you guys okay, you're acting like I almost died. Well, I was in a coma but the docs said my life was never in danger. More importantly what did you mean when you said 2/3rd's of the squad is out?" Mu asked, though with his recent experience he had a sneaking suspicion on what happened.

Both Rick and Kat looked at each other, a silent conversation being said between the two's eyes. They then looked at the immediate area, which had collected a small number of onlookers from their scene, and then back at Mu.

"Mu, if you collapsed just like us, then you probably went through what we did. I think we should head back to my room for some privacy, as it needs to stay between the three of us for now."

Mu was tempted to crack a joke about Kat inviting them for a threeway in her bed, but seeing the dark and gloomy looks on their faces told him the severity of the situation and had him wisely keep quiet.

"Lead the way." He conceded.

The three zero pilots made it to Kat's shared room. Mu and Kat sat on the edges of her bed while Rick faced them in the opposing bed.

"Mu, before we start this session, I just want one thing to be clear. Did you see yourself die?" Rick asked.

At first Mu felt shock at the question, not because of what Rick had asked, but of how he knew of what Mu had seen. Then he remembered what his future self had told him, about him being some sort of _Newtype_. Perhaps they had similar abilities as well.

"Yes." Mu stated.

"**FUCK!**" Rick shouted in response, slamming his fist on the hard steel wall. On the bed Mu felt Kat's weight shift, herself on the verge of collapse on hearing the exclamation.

"Looking back I can understand why I died in that hellhole, I was way too damn sloppy as time went on. But you Mu, you're the best of us, you should have made it back alive. I may not have seen everything but I saw you tear apart the enemy, you were unstoppable." Rick said.

"Mu's just a mortal Natural like the both of us. If ZAFT gained the upper hand and killed most of the squad then Mu would fall as well. It was probably that white ace who killed me." Kat said somberly.

The two's statements brought confusion to Mu. "What are you guys saying? I know I died but it's not like I experienced my death...wait. You two are talking about like you saw your deaths, and in battle. What happened?"

The two pilots looked at Mu, completely bewildered at what he had said. However, Mu saw some small glimpses of relief and hope on their faces at the same time.

"So Mu, you didn't die at Endymion? If you didn't die there was it sometime later, or after the war hopefully ended?" Kat asked.

"At Endymion?! No, why would I-"Mu was about to continue until he saw several intense flashes before his eyes. The experience wasn't as intense as what he had felt after he collapsed, rather it was like several clips of a movie being jammed into his head. There was a titanic clash over the lunar surface. Mu had taken down several GINNs. He watched his squadmates die one by one. Throughout the battle he had maintained a prolonged duel against a white mobile suit that radiated evil. At the end there was a bright flash of light, consuming the entire battlefield in death.

"No, I...I didn't die at Endymion. I was the only one of the squad who made it out alive. They called me the Hawk of Endymion." Mu said slowly in horror. Somehow in those precious seconds he had regained memories and an understanding of what had taken place, of the battle that they were most likely referring to. Was this some sort of gift that his future self had given him, to help him move forward with knowledge despite the lack of a long conversation between them?

Silence reigned for several long moments after that. Mu could feel a flurry of emotions go through both Rick and Kat, not that he could blame them as he was also feeling several stages of grief consume him, the loss of the squadron which most definitely would have occurred in the future.

"I think I understand what you guys are trying to say, but I'm pretty sure that what I experienced was completely different than what you two went through. Let's start off with how we came into this mess, what's going on with the squad, what you two guys witnessed, and then we'll talk about myself." Mu said, providing some much clear direction to the conversation before it became cluttered in a vague guessing game.

Kat began first, "About midnight right after we began the meeting, eight of the squad including us experienced seizures that soon caused us to collapse. From what I've heard after waking up, this was something that was not only repeated across the entire lunar base, the city of Ptolemaeus, the entire moon, but the Earth sphere as well as the news around that time showed footage all across the world of tens of millions of people collapsing into seizures."

"Christ, that's a lot of people." Mu uttered. "Sounds like some sort of doomsday bio weapon from a video game."

"If it weren't for the fact that we along with a good portion of those collapsed on the base have awaken right now then I would agree with you. People say it's a Coordinator bioweapon, but it did a pretty shitty job if we're still here, not to mention they obviously had something better unleashed on Earth." Rick said.

"Considering what we went through, I call absolute bullshit on this being a ZAFT concoction." Kat said.

"Wait, what were you talking about when you said ZAFT unleashed a superweapon, did they nuke the planet?" Mu asked with grave concern.

Rick shook his head, disgust heavy on his face. "No, they did something both worse and not as awful. Good news is the planet is still in one piece and ZAFT didn't drop any nukes on it so there's not going to be any long-term environmental effects. The bad news is that they dropped thousands of some kind of superweapon that completely knocked out the energy grids of all of the Alliance members. The Orbital Fleet was sent to stop them, but apparently they got massacred despite a 6 to 1 numerical advantage. From what little we've gathered, it seems they were able to knock out the fleet's power and murder most of them. Every ship is equipped with a fission reactor to power them, which means somehow, someway, ZAFT just flicked the bird to physics and can prevent the atom from splitting."

"The N-Jammers." Mu said in horror, the word once again rolling off of the tongue naturally. Both Rick and Kat looked at him with curiosity, this being the second time that he displayed an awareness of information that they hadn't told him.

"Yeah Mu, that's the name that some people are calling them. Did any of the doctors tell you when you woke up?" Kat asked.

"I...I think it has to do with what I went through. I'll explain later, for now I want to hear what you guys went through." Mu replied. He noticed that after telling him of the N-Jammers, both Rick and Kat had become even more gloomy and downtrodden. Mu remembered how in their conversations both pilots had frequently talked about the large families they came from with lots of extended relatives who they were both close to.

Since his parents death, Mu never had any strong permanent bonds or relationships throughout his life. When he joined the military, the Space Force in a way became his new family with Mu developing a fondness and dedication to the branch that he never held before. He had developed several good friendships, though few were so close to Mu that he considered them best friends.

Rick and Kat were the complete opposites, having many strong familial and friendship ties on Earth that they still maintained. For their loved ones to be suffering through the loss of power while they were on the moon and unable to do nothing must have been hell. For the first time Mu considered himself lucky that he never drew others close to him.

"When we all collapsed into seizures, I'm pretty sure we all experienced some sort of...shared vision. I know it sounds pretty crazy but it's the truth. From what Rick and I saw, we were fighting an intense battle at Endymion. ZAFT was assaulting the base with all they got and we were sending wave after wave of ships and mobile armor to stop them. For some reason, despite our overwhelming numbers, this hardly phased ZAFT and they went through us like a hot knife on butter. Now that I think about it, it's probably thanks to their new weapon.

The fighting was absolute hell Mu. It made Yggdrasil look like some sort of Academy sim for beginners. I don't remember everything that happened, it all came to me at waves with what was happening shifting either minutes or seconds. It's like I was watching a movie, yet experiencing it at the same time. All I know is we went in hoping for a victory, but as time went on we were struggling to just stay alive.

I don't remember how long it was after the battle started, but I remember two of our squadmates dying before then. You were surrounded by six mobile suits, a white one was leading them against you. You did your best and got a couple of them destroyed, but they were wearing you down. I tried to help you and I got one shot down. But right after I came, the white one was on me. It couldn't have been more than a minute, but he tore apart all of my gunbarrels with his sword, then pointed his gun straight at my cockpit, and then..." Kat trailed off, tears starting to form on her face. It didn't take much to figure out that this was probably how she died.

_'Rau Le Creuscet.'_ Mu thought venomously, hatred swelling throughout his body. Whatever abilities he had now, it alerted him that this was the man his future self had told him about, one whose very existence could somehow drive humanity to extinction. Before Mu had just been told that he was evil and Rau didn't mean anything. Now, hearing that he was responsible for Kat's death, things got personal.

"I'm pretty sure I survived longer than Kat, I remember hearing about her death. There was also a small conversation I had with you between battles Mu, you were pretty devastated about it." Rick said.

"Nice to know that you'll remember me Mu." Kat said, a small smile forming.

"Kat, you're a hell of a squadmate but more importantly a great friend, the same goes for you Rick. I'm sorry that there's a future where both of you died, but now that we know about it I'm not going to let anything happen to either of you. Kat, I swear I'll kill that white ace before this war is over, you have my word." Mu declared.

Kat leaned on Mu, gripping on his arm. "Thanks." She whispered, while Mu gently brushed her hair in return. Mu's heart may now be for Murrue, but Kat was still his friend and he would make sure she lived until the end of the war.

Mu saw Rick watch the both of them quietly for a number of seconds, feeling a sense of longing from the Texan in his silence before he continued, "After Kat, Norman was the next one to go. I saw his death myself. The poor guy had his Zero torn to shreds slowly by some maniac in blue. After that was done Blue ripped Norm from the cockpit and crushed him in its hands. I arrived right after and managed to send the bastard to hell.

Afterwords I kind of lost it. I may not have experienced everything, but from what I saw, I jumped over the edge and went Berserk. Every single sortie after that I tried to kill as many Coordinators as I could. I strayed from the squad and didn't work with anyone, I just darted across the battlefield and pulled the trigger on any suits I saw. It was too stupid and reckless. Eventually I was isolated and surrounded. I tried my best to fight back, but by the end I was running on half a machine and a round went through the cockpit and-"Rick stopped, placing his hand on his head and wincing from pain. "It probably lasted a second, but I felt it, and it was pure hell." Rick's eyes trailed off and he collapsed on the bed, leaning against the wall and sporting a look of heavy defeat.

After hearing his friend's stories, Mu felt awful about not only what they went through, but what he went through in comparison. Oh sure he would die in the future, but it's not like he experienced his own death, hell he didn't even know what it was from. Really all that he experienced was landing on a tropical beach, watching a proposal between a clone of himself and a woman he loved yet never met, and meeting his ghost. Sure it may have been emotionally draining, but it was nothing compared to these two.

Silence reigned after Rick finished, with nothing being heard in the room besides their collective breathing, cries from both Rick and Kat, and the air conditioner. Eventually the two composed themselves and looked at Mu, expecting him to share his side of the story.

For a couple of moments, Mu was hesitant and thought of some lie to tell. It was absolutely shameful of him when they poured their worst moments right in front of him, but to Mu, not only was the information he could share too extraordinary too believe, but it was also incredibly personal. Not only that, but it was so huge in scope that he didn't know if he could trust them with it, especially with Kat being Eurasian.

Looking at the both of them however, Mu felt something within himself that told him to trust them. It wasn't just a gut feeling, but some sort of whisper in his mind that gave him an okay. Out of the entirety of the squad, Rick and Kat were probably the closest to him, the two who he could maybe call his best friends. They weren't blabbermouths and they could keep a secret. Mu also had a feeling that whatever grand crusade his future self sent him on, he couldn't do it alone. Might as well share his information with others like him, especially when they revealed their darkest moments.

Mu took a couple breaths to steady himself, "Listen, what I'm about to tell you is something crazy, but all of it is completely true." Mu then revealed his experience to both of them.

Rick and Kat were completely silent for the duration of the story, taking it all in with mild amounts of shock on their faces. After Mu finished they remained silent for about ten seconds, with Rick then breaking it with a heavy amount of laughter.

"What's so funny?" Mu demanded.

"I'm sorry, but you have to see it from our perspective. We literally experienced our own deaths but you got sent to Haiwaii, spoke with the ghost of future past, and fell in love with some mystery lady. I thought you were lucky in cards and battle but it seems like you have the greatest luck out of all of us." Rick said.

Rick's explanation got Kat to laugh weakly at the ridiculousness of it all.

"You guys do believe me right?"

"Yeah, all of that other stuff was too heavy when combined with the rest and you were pretty damn serious throughout. Sorry about your loss though Kat, looks like Mu's out of the market." Rick said.

Kat separated herself from Mu, then leaned back with a sigh. "It's alright. No offense Mu, but I'm not ready to get back with you anytime soon and if you truly did find the love of your life after my death, then good for you. I'm quite curious to see who this Baltic beauty is in comparison to me."

"Baltic?" Mu questioned.

"Her last name Ramius is a somewhat common Lithuanian name. I went to Vilnius for a study abroad and met a handful of them over there." Kat explained.

The explanation made Mu wonder if she was Scandinavian, but from what he remembered she spoke with an American accent, though from which part of the former U.S he couldn't say. Perhaps she had, or more correctly _is_ serving in the Atlantic Forces right now.

"Okay, first lets take some time to go over the info Mu gave us. Firstly in some good news is that heaven exists. If an atheist like Mu was able to go high then I don't think we'll have a problem Kat. It's nice to know that at least if we die this time, then there will be an afterlife." Rick said. Rick was Catholic while Kat was Eastern Orthodox, so Mu's confirmation that at least their teachings on the afterlife were true must have been a sign of relief, their moods had certainly improved after he revealed that little fact.

"Actually I'm agnostic, but with all that's going on believing in God is hardly a challenge." Mu said.

"So you'll accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?" Rick said in a mostly light hearted and joking manner.

"Give me some time after the war ends and I'll think about it."

"Still, I feel bad about what your future self must have went through. You died for some reason and the woman you loved married your clone who somehow has your soul?" Kat asked in confusion.

"Yeah about that part, what the hell was your dad into that he decided to make a clone of you? Not even Coordinators go that far in genetics and if I remember your dad was an important Senator right? If that was made public then he'd be run out of Washington and Blue Cosmos would hang him from a tree. Also I'm worried about this Neo guy. You said that he admitted he was a monster to Murrue, what the hell could he have done to make himself say that, yet your future love still accepted him?" Rick asked.

Mu sighed, the revelation leaving him filled with disgust and confusion. "I don't know why he did it. My dad and I were never close and after he died I never bothered to look into what his life. He never had any official support for Coordinators nor did he condemn Blue Cosmos, so I don't think anyone could imagine him being a cloner. As for Neo, I'll have to meet him and judge him for myself. I was told he's not an enemy, so he can't be that bad of a guy. If he's a threat though I'll take him down." Mu said.

_'God, my life has turned into the plot of an anime overnight.'_ Mu lamented.

"More importantly, your father didn't stop at you as he apparently made multiple clones of himself, including this Rau guy. Could he really be that dangerous to wipe out humanity at his own hands?" Kat questioned.

"I don't think it's an exaggeration. The hate and loathing my counterpart had for that guy when he talked about him was pretty hard. All I know is that he's the guy who killed Kat." Mu said, shocking the Ukrainian pilot greatly with her feelings morphing into anger. "He's dangerous enough as a skilled ZAFT pilot. We'll take him down on the battlefield for that alone, and whatever he's planning will end with his life."

"There's also the fact that apparently all that's happened is because we're Newtypes, whatever the hell that means. And our visions occurred because some nation called Zeon has entered our plane of existence? I've accepted everything til now, but a dimension hopping country? If it occurred we certainly didn't hear anything before now." Rick said.

His confusion was very understandable to Mu, who thought for a few seconds on how to come up with an answer.

"I don't know what exactly a Newtype is, but from the visions we've experienced, the closest thing I can think of is psychics. There's also something I just remembered. You see throughout my life I've had this sort of sixth sense that happens at times, I never told anyone about it because I thought it was just luck and good senses. Sometimes, and usually in the thick of battle, I'll feel a flash go through my body, a small shock like a lightning bolt. When that happens there's some sort of danger that leaps at me, and from that warning I'm able to adapt and react quickly. I first started noticing it when I played sports, but it's been increasing in frequency whenever I go fly" Mu explained. He felt goosebumps on his body when he saw the two grow incredibly still at his words.

"You two?"

"Yeah, I went through the same thing you did. I just thought it was my body reacting naturally, but it seems like we've all got some sort of spider-sense as a power." Rick said.

"Same with me. When you think about it, the reason Zero Squad formed was because we all have enough spatial awareness to pilot the Zeros. Eight of us had seizures and visions, so maybe we've always been Newtypes." Kat said.

"Psychics, huh? Does this mean that we're actually superior to Coordinators despite being Naturals? They may have better bodies and brains, but they can't see into the future. Not only that, but what the hell is Blue Cosmos going to think of us? They'll kill anyone with altered genes, imagine how livid they'll be when they found out their living with psychics. We may be Naturals but that won't mean a damn to them, this kind of crap happens all the time in superhero comics." Rick said.

It was a strong point and one Mu was starting to fear greatly. While he loved his country, he was well aware that within the Atlantic Federation there was an unhealthily large amount of people who sympathized with the idea of a blue and pure world. Surely they would hate Mu just the same if not more than Coordinators for this?

_'It's not like I'm a goddamn mind reader or I can move objects at will. I can just see a couple seconds into the future, it's a pretty crappy superpower if you ask me!'_

"Considering that there were tens of millions of people on Earth who collapsed like us, they were probably all Naturals who were born as Newtypes and never realized it. There's going to be tons of explanations of what happened from mass hysteria to divine intervention, so psychics won't be the first thing to pop to mind. If a good number of Blue Cosmos are also Newtypes then that should prevent any hard hatred from forming, at least for now." Kat hoped.

"I received a mission from my future self, he told me to embrace my identity as a Newtype, find others like me, protect them, and help them fulfill their potential. We may not have asked for this, but this is who we are now. We need to stick together, find out what the hell Newtypes are and can do, and defend ourselves. If Blue Cosmos wants to make an enemy out of us, then I'll bring as many of them down with me as I can." Mu said, bringing comfort and smiles to Rick and Kat.

"And this mysterious Zeon, the nation that caused this mess in the first place?" Rick asked.

"I don't know what they are, but I have a feeling that we'll be meeting them soon. Unless they're incredibly more advanced then us, then they have to be somewhere within the Earth sphere and it'll only be a matter of time before first contact is made. None of the brass will believe my story so for now we'll have to wait and be on the look out for any news. After we find out about them, it'll depend on what the hell kind of people they are. Let's just hope they're not too alien from us and will be good neighbors instead of Nazis from another dimension."

**April 3rd, 70 CE. 0845 Orb Standard. Orb National Defense Command Center. Olofat. Orb Union. Koto Sahaku POV**

In the center of the Orb command center, Koto Sahaku was hard at work mobilizing the Orb Self-Defense Force to prepare for the ongoing crisis, with a special focus on the miniscule space force to be able to deal with the aftermath of whatever was going on in space.

Hours ago after their first productive conversation, Garma had returned with his father and brother, Degwin and Gihren Zabi. The respective Sovereign and Prime Minister of Zeon had further explained the state of affairs within their nation and what their immediate goals were, mostly to settle within the Earth sphere, make contact with the Cosmic Era's established nations, and to deal with the liberation of the far side of the moon from the remnants of the Earth Federation that had in their point of view oppressed them for decades.

While Uzumi had been alarmed at the last point, wanting to act as a mediator to convince the Federal remnants to enter into diplomacy with Zeon, for now Orb and Zeon had established strong informal relations with Zeon promising to get their affairs settled first before any grand forays while Uzumi pledged to use Orb to introduce Zeon to the rest of the Earth sphere. It was one of the best cases he could ask for, with a good foundation laid for a potential partnership with what would soon be the dominant nation in the solar system due to Zeon's grand presence in L2.

With the immediate affair of Zeon settled, the big five had disbanded to settle other affairs. Uzumi until recently had been partnering with Shigeru to try to alert the Earth of Zeon's existence, until about an hour ago when he had been alerted of Cagali regaining consciousness. Keiko was taking stock of the nation's medical supplies to prepare for what was going to be the worst humanitarian crisis in history. And Unato...actually Koto had no idea what Unato was currently doing. All the bald noble (who much like his son's resemblance to Garma bared an uncanny resemblence to Degwin) said he had to take care of important personal affairs, whatever that meant.

That left Koto, the most martially inclined of the five, to watch over the self-defense forces and be on standby in case Zeon resumed contact, something that was just about to take place.

A lieutenant had walked up to him and bowed in greeting, "Lord Koto, Zeon has contacted us and requested for a discussion on a critical development regarding East Asia."

The information was eye catching to Koto. While Zeon revealed they had an asteroid base in L4, by all accounts they had established a decent first contact with the East Asians. Orbital satellites had indicated a general withdrawal to the moon after the orbital battle, so what could have possibly taken place?

"Thank you Lieutenant, I assumed you transferred the communication to the situation room?" He asked, receiving a nod in return. Thanking the officer, Koto made his way to the situation room, sitting alone as the screen lit up to reveal Gihren Zabi.

_'Ah, so the predator comes alone.'_ Koto thought with intrigue.

While Degwin seemed to posses the same overt cordiality that Garma presented himself with, Gihren was a different creature altogether. Throughout the meeting he had observed the heads of Orb with the critical eyes of a hawk. Every time he spoke, while being diplomatic, involved some sort of probe or test to Orb to try to ascertain a weakness or reveal some important aspect of their nation.

While Uzumi may have been insulted at the behavior if he noted, Koto was impressed. He had met many politicians during his rule, and most didn't contain such high skill in intrigue nor leave such a strong first impression as Gihren had. The man would either make an interesting partner or a worthy adversary.

"Lord Gihren." Koto said respectfully, then proceeding to wheez upon taking a breath after his greeting.

"Lord Koto." Gihren said in reply, waiting for the noble to finish his coughing tirade.

"To what does Zeon wish of Orb at this time? Have you called for the progress on our diplomatic efforts? We currently have Scandinavia and the Equatorial Union listening, but with ZAFT's superweapon they have more pressing domestic concerns and are unable to give us their full attention." Koto said, covering his mouth with a handkerchief as he spoke to recover.

"I have not called to ask of your diplomacy, though I am grateful for your current endeavors. No, what I wish to speak of is a recent altercation with East Asia, well East Asia and ZAFT though I believe that help from Orb would be more beneficial in regards to the L4 colonies."

"East Asia and ZAFT? Have they established formal relations? Did their war get dragged into your territory?" Koto asked with slight concern.

"It is not that they dragged their war into our territory, rather the two parties declared war on us." Gihren began, then going into an explanation on how their two asteroid bases outside of L2, Solomon and Pezun, were attacked without provocation by ZAFT and East Asia hours earlier.

_'Heh, idiots. They are waging total war against each other and now both sides decide to poke at a nation that excells their combined resources and technology. The textbook definition of ironic if there ever was one.'_

While Koto was indifferent to the fate of the PLANTs (despite both of his children being Coordinators), he was inwardly exhilarated on the news of the East Asian attack. If Zeon's population not only outnumbered East Asia's Spacenoids by ten to one, but they had nuclear fusion and mobile suits, then this would be a bloody and brutal defeat for the nation that drove Koto's father from their ancestral homeland.

"May I ask what caused the two to attack Zeon without a casus belli? I cannot possibly see either side group together for a first strike against Zeon, especially when your nation has committed no crime."

Gihren raised his shoulders slightly, "I haven't the slightest idea. But I swear that all bled shed by Spacenoids today shall be avenged tenfold."

Koto's lips tugged slightly upward. _'Oh, is he about to do what I think he will? Please make it so.'_

"If I am to presume Lord Gihren, then Zeon shall make an immediate counterattack?"

"Indeed. And this is I would require of Orb's assistance."

"How so? As you may have learned, Orb is a nation whose founding ideals are those of neutrality, and as such we cannot possibly provide any military assistance, even though what has been inflicted upon your nation was a heinous crime." Koto said, hiding feelings of glee as one of his dreams was coming true.

"So I have been told by your Chief Representative. I do not seek the involvement of your armed forces, we are fully capable of independent operations and it is not your fight. What I am seeking for is information on East Asia, more specifically their cluster of colonies within L4 in regards to the physical condition of the colonies themselves and the people who live there."

_'Yes. YES! He __**is**__ doing it.'_

"So you would ask for intelligence on East Asia?" Koto asked, wanting absolutely no ambiguity.

"What I wish for is unbiased public information on the conditions of the L4 cluster that would not have been included in the information Eurasia sent us. Though any intelligence that Orb would willingly provide would be a welcomed gift to Zeon, one which would would impart on us a debt of gratitude on Orb that we would be willing to repay in...favorable trade negotiations." Gihren said.

_'Oh he is dastardly. Mina would love him.'_

"And what if said information was not provided by the Orb Union, but through House Sahaku as an interested private party who wishes to aid a victim of East Asia's imperialism?"

_'Uzumi, you better stay by your daughter's side and don't you dare step through that door you damn hippie!'_

Gihren smirked, most likely being completely aware of Koto's hidden meanings. "Then the debt would be transferred from Zeon and Orb to House Zabi and House Sahaku. When we achieve victory over East Asia, the shared information shall be exchanged for House Sahaku having first and favorable rights to conduct business within the Principality. We are always open to foreign investment, especially with potential partners who bring aid to the downfall of _shared enemies_." Gihren said, the last two words making it clear that he recognized the crimes of East Asia towards Orb.

To Koto Sahaku, this small moment was one of the greatest victories he had ever achieved within his life. Not only would his house and their assets have the first pick to a rich and untapped market that was soon set to monopolize the solar system, at the same time East Asia would suffer and burn, bringing ruin to the cursed nation which had occupied the homeland for the past sixty years and forced his family into exile in these puny islands. Oh it was a glorious day for Orb and House Sahaku.

"Well my Lord, I think we have a deal. Give me a few minutes and I shall have all the information I have transferred to you. As the champion of the rights of Spacenoids, I eagerly look forward to the hour when Zeon liberates the L4 ghettos from East Asia's tyranny."

**A/N: For the majority of the chapter we return to Mu who is dealing with the aftermath of his vision and trying to decide where to go from here, alongside gaining two new valuable allies. Rick was introduced in Chapter 3 but I called him Ricky then (I'll edit it in a bit), and then we have Katryna Boginskaya who is an OC of mine who will offer an insight into Eurasian affairs and further flesh out Zero Squadron.**

**One important ability of Mu that was introduced here was his Recognition where he receives information from his past life, though this doesn't make him omniscient and it has several drawbacks. Firstly, Mu can only be aware of information that he learned when he was alive the first time, since this ability was given to him by his future self. This means that Mu doesn't have any idea of LOGOS' existence, has no comprehension of ZAFT or the greater Alliance's strategy, is at a complete loss as to where most of the Archangel crew is right now, etc. In addition, there will be some information that is omitted to Mu in order to keep him from being biased or making rash choices. As his future self said in Chapter 7, Zeon has caused almost everything from canon to be erased so there's a good chance Mu will walk a completely different path. Overall this will bite him in the ass just as much as it will help him.**

**In the conclusion of the chapter we look at Koto Sahaku who secretly violated Orb's neutrality and gave Zeon info on East Asia. Both Gina and Mina in the beginning of Astray state their plans for Orb to dominate the Earth sphere, in the process aiding the Alliance. Therefore it's safe to assume that this realpolitik was inherited from their father, with Koto dispalying it in this chapter. Koto really hates East Asia with a passion and will be glad to see Zeon strike at them while advancing the interests of their own house. Uzumi would be absolutely pissed if he finds out but it wouldn't be the first time the Sahaku's or any of the other houses went behind his back.**

**The reason Gihren called is going to be shown in the next chapter where we'll see the Zabi's immediate reaction to Solomon and Pezun and their next steps to both secure their place in the Cosmic Era and make the rest of the Earth sphere aware of them. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	15. Moving the Chessboard

**April 3rd, 70 CE. 0417 Colonial Standard. Royal Palace. Zum City, Principality of Zeon. Degwin Zabi POV**

Inside of his office, sitting at his desk, Degwin Sodo Zabi fumed. Just as his military attache had left after informing the Sovereign of recent developments, Degwin slammed his fist down on the table, producing a low shock that caused all items on the table's surface to vibrate a little bit.

"Damn ZAFT, Damn East Asia, Dammit all to hell!" Degwin cursed.

_'Are we so unfortunate as Spacenoids that we shall have to fight for our independence in days of our existence in a new timeline?'_

One of Degwin's greatest comforts upon finding himself in this new timeline was that Zeon need no longer wage war for independence nor have to commit such unspeakable atrocities that Gihren had been planning for Operation Prussian. Outside of the Federal Fleet that remained on the Far Side, the Earth Federation no longer existed and Side 3 would no longer be bound to the tyranny of gravity, especially with the Earth divided into a collection of superstates that had been locked in a Cold War for over half a century.

Degwin's hopes were further emboldened by peaceful contacts with East Asia and Orb. Surely in time they would be able to coexist with the Earthnoid states, beginning a decline of the hateful Nationalism that had been concocted by Gihren and returning the people of Zeon to a more calm society, allowing Zeon to focus its energies on peacefully expanding into the solar system.

Such dreams had now been killed within the past ten hours. Not only did the Coordinators of ZAFT refuse to make contact with Zeon and tried to assault Solomon to kill Dozle, East Asia had betrayed them and launched a nuclear strike that far exceeded every nuclear attack in the Universal Century combined.

Zeon may have emerged victorious, but hundreds of ships and Zakus were lost, tens of thousands of men and women were torn from their families. Worse of all if the reports were correct, both of these attacks were done out of ZAFT and East Asia thinking Zeon was the other enemy, neither believing their attempts at peaceful first contact.

Lounging before him in one of the office chairs, Gihren smirked at his father's reaction."Calm down father, the situation is not as bad as it appears. If anything, these two battles are of immense benefit to Zeon."

_'Where did I go wrong with that boy?'_ Degwin asked, aghast at Gihren non-chalant, if not pleased reaction to the recent state of affairs.

While Gihren had never been the most affectionate or empathetic child, he still had a small sense of kindness that he displayed within the family. When Gihren had graduated univeristy and became a career politician thanks to Degwin's influence, his old self had died, giving way to a Machiavellian schemer who sought to control those around him.

"How can you react in such a way Gihren? Tens of thousands of our citizens have died due to the idiocy of two nations, your own brother could have died out there in battle!" Degwin shouted.

To Gihren's credit, he looked insulted at the accusation of a lack of care towards Dozle's well-being. "I had every faith that in a war with the Federation that Dozle would emerge victorious and annihilate the opposition. You saw the after action report, he proved his abilities by obliterating a fleet of superhumans. He stayed within Solomon anyways so he was never in any hard danger. I guess Zenna finally knocked some sense into him, that alone makes her worth of the Zabi name." Gihren complimented.

While Degwin was relieved that Gihren showed some care for Dozle's well-being, even giving praise to Zenna (something she deserved for preventing Dozle from foolishly fighting in the front lines in his Zaku), Degwin was still put off by his demeanor towards the concept of a war.

"Even if we have achieved grand total victories, the like of which has never been seen in human history, we are now in a state of war, Gihren. War has come to the Principality when we are cut off from the Earth sphere's economy, the Jovian sphere no longer exists, and we have only Axis and Luna to rely on resources, the latter of which has a Federal presence. We should be focusing on planting our roots and ensuring long-term survival, **not** entering into a conflict caused by misunderstanding."

"I am well aware father of our pressing economic challenges father. In the months leading to now we were prepared to enter into a state of war for six years in isolation from the rest of the Earth sphere, we shall be fine for the short term, even without Jupiter. Instead of cowering in fear at the first sight of blood, we should use our wounds as opportunities to cement Zeon's domination over the Earth sphere."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Degwin asked, though he had a strong feeling on what Gihren was planning already.

Gihren now shot upright in his chair, getting into his presentation mode, "If there is anything that the Battles of Solomon and Pezun show, it is that we are the most powerful state within the Cosmic Era. Both halves of this ongoing intrasphere war were crushed by our Space Forces, with even a military of superhumans trembling before the might of Zeon. No matter their numerical superiority or how many mobile suits or nukes either side has at their disposal, they shall all fall in battle before Zeon.

Even outside of military affairs, we are the apex nation. The Cosmic Era has had seventy years to fulfill its name and expand humanity's presence throughout the solar system. Instead of planting humanity from Earth to Jupiter, this timeline was even more incompetent than the Federation with no colonization beyond the Belt, Mars being left to private interests, and a majority of the Earth sphere's colonies were constructed for superhumans that they despise. We have more colonies than the entire Cosmic Era combined and our population dwarfs their combined population of Spacenoids. Days ago we were a Side among many, now we are the rightful rulers of space."

"I am well aware of the new power dynamics of this timeline, just what are you getting at Gihren?" Degwin asked.

Gihren smiled sickeningly, "We are already the superior race to the Cosmic Era. Let us use this conflict to extend our superiority and in the aftermath leave no possible room for the Earthnoids or the Coordinators to get within reaching distance of our power.

What I propose is for Lutjens and the 3rd Fleet to launch a rapid invasion of the L4 cluster to avenge our losses at Pezun. From the information that we have obtained from Orb, it appears that the L4 colonies are ghettos where East Asia has chosen to deport tens of millions of seditious Korean and Japanese citizens to create a Chinese-dominant society. Tens of millions of Spacenoids cry out for justice from gravity's tyranny, as a nation who has suffered for generations under Earth's rule, we should liberate our brethren."

At the mention of the L4 colonies being ghettos to contain East Asia's racial minorities, Degwin flared with anger. While he had no great devotion to his ethnic heritage, Degwin was half-Japanese so by his birth he would be a target of oppression for East Asia. Side 3 was also notorious among the Sides for being the dumping ground of racial groups that were considered to be troublesome by the Federation; Russians, Arabs, Eastern Europeans, Africans; these and many more were exported to space en mass for not conforming to the Federation's standard of a post-racial and globalist world.

"In addition to siezing Lagrange 4 into our domain, there is also the issue of the Federal remnants in the Far Side of the moon. Now that we are in a state of war with East Asia, they and the greater Alliance could partner with the Federal remnants and use them as a buffer state against our expansion into the Earth sphere, at the same time locking us from rare Earth minerals and more importantly Luna's supply of Helium-3. Even outside of the Far Side cities the Alliance would most likely lay claim to all of Luna as their own. If we eliminate the Federal Remnants and liberate the cities who already lie within our sphere of influence, then we can conquer half of the moon and send Earth into further scarcity, causing their economies to collapse with the lack of power.

Lastly there are the PLANTs. While Dozle may have destroyed them in battle, if we give them a moment of rest then they shall use their superhuman intellegence to create WMD's which can cripple our fleets as they did to the Earth. We must cripple the hourglasses so that in their reconstruction we shall sieze the solar system for ourselves. When they can stand on their own two fight, we shall overwhelm them with resource and demographic supremacy."

Degwin regarded Gihren wearily. While what he said was technically correct, his desire for total conflict with the Cosmic Era when they had just arrived was still disturbing to Degwin. He could see the merits of decisive victories over ZAFT and East Asia with grand concessions, but such a conflict must not be protracted, especially given the nature of the war's ignition over misunderstanding.

"While you speak strong points, you must remember Gihren that these wars began because they did not believe our existence. When we show proof that we are not of this world, they will most likely ask for an armistice and beg forgiveness, at which point we will not be able to create such grand victories without escalating the conflict and turning us from the victims to the aggressors. How shall we act then?"

"I have no intention of making this a long war father." Gihren stated, surprising Degwin as he seemed to contradict his earlier words, "Overall this First Contact War must be above all else a splendid little war, if we go to total war with the Earth sphere then we shall exhaust ourselves and unite the world against us when they are set on killing each other. That is why we must act quickly before they realize we are not their true enemies. It must be within a short period of time to give us plausible deniability of their mistakes and have us make grand concessions as the righteous victims.

First we must focus on mobilizing the Home Fleet and the 1st Fleet at A Bao Qu to eliminate the pathetic last remnants of the Earth Federation, the consolidation of our rule on Luna must come above all else to secure our Helium-3 supplies. Next and hopefully to be done at the same time, we shall liberate L4 and bolster our numbers with the oppressed Spacenoids who call the cluster home. For now it would be best if Dozle stood his guard at Solomon to be on the watch for any superweapons up their sleeves. I don't want to engage with ZAFT without at least half our space force for a one hundred percent victory." Gihren said.

Degwin regarded the plan for a couple moments. Internally he was relieved that his son wanted a short war, and was not looking to recreate Prussian in the Cosmic Era. If Degwin made peace now, then all he would likely be offered would be reparations. But if he went through with the plan then he could control half of Luna and two Lagrange points, transforming the Principality into a might empire.

"I agree with your plan, however, after the elimination of the Federal fleet and the liberation of L4, I intend to announce our presence to the rest of the Earth sphere, including ZAFT. While I despise them for attacking Solomon and putting Dozle's life at risk, they are at the same time Spacneoids who are fighting against Earth's tyranny just as we did. ZAFT must pay, but I don't see the need to wipe them out."

Degwin had expected Gihren to vehemently disagree, but to his surprise he simply nodded his head. "As you wish, Father."

Such an easy acquiescence made Degwin uneasy._'He must have something planned for ZAFT already that does not necessitate a harsh and immediate counterattack. But what?'_

Gihren stood up and made his way to exit, but Degwin stopped him, wanting his intentions to be clear. "Gihren, while I agree with taking justice against East Asia and ZAFT, what of the other members of the Earth Alliance. There is also Orb to consider, do you intend to knock them down as well?"

"The other members of the Alliance don't concern me as of now. As it was an East Asian fleet alone who attacked us, we can assume that their partners were either unaware or refused to participate. Unless they make moves to support their ally in their war against us or seek to bring the Far Side cities into their fold, then they shall be left alone. As for Orb, they are a speck of a country that is no threat to us. They'll be useful allies in helping to integrate us into the Earth sphere's economy, but I doubt that they shall be of more use than that. Such a microstate is nothing compared to the majesty of Zeon."

Gihren then began to walk out of his office, "Call the Chiefs of Staff and order them to assemble within the hour. We shall create a new strategy and then transmit it to A Bao Qu and Pezun for immediate action."

Degwin raised his eyebrows, "An hour, why not right now? Where will you be during this time?"

"Making some calls." Gihren answered abstractly, exiting the office and beginning whatever schemes he most likely concocted.

Degwin slumped in his chair and let out a sigh.

_'I pray that this timeline will make him a better man, for I fear I could not oppose the monster he was about to become.'_

**ZSFS Great Degwin. Garma Zabi POV**

After he had made first contact with Orb things had gone smoothly for Garma with him setting up a permanent communication link between Olofat and Zum City so that his father and Gihren could converse with Orb's nobles. He had discussed in detail the escort of the _Raifuku Maru_ back to Heliopolis with Orb protection and with the ship's crew no longer in confinement there were no problems from their unfortunate detainees since.

Aside from resolving the incident and establishing relations with Orb, Garma had arranged for the transportation of hundreds of UC vaccines to go onboard of the _Raifuku Maru_ so it could be sent to Heliopolis and Orb could have deal with any possible outbreaks from a contagion that had stowed away on the ship. From his dialogue with Keiko Keitamura, the Coordinator Noble had promised to send as much of Heliopolis' stockpile to Zeon as soon as possible, with the most important package being vaccines for the S-1 and S-2 influenza. While the two viruses were technically eradicated in the Cosmic Era, there were always possibilities of a mutant strand popping up or the virus surviving in isolation, waiting to wreak havoc.

With his job done Garma had taken a good night's rest and was prepared to return back to Zum City in triumph. However, shortly after he had woken up he had received a communication from Gihren, informing Garma of the upcoming attacks on Granada and the L4 cluster.

"You have proven your brilliance once again brother, our first years here shall Zeon prosper with your leadership." Garma complimented.

His words brought a rare smile to Gihren, "Thank you Garma."

Garma was well aware of how uncomfortable both Dozle and Kycillia were with their eldest brother, and while Garma was well aware of his brother's personality and character flaws, at the same time he was the man who along with his father revitalized the Principality and transformed it into an industrial titan of the Sides, slowly but surely gearing them for total independence from the Federation.

For some reason there seemed to be some movement among the Zeon public to have Garma become the next Sovereign by having his father declare him as heir. While Garma was more than flattered that he was trusted by so many to lead Zeon, he saw it as a horrid injustice to Gihren's contributions in running the Principality. Not only did Gihren deserve to rule thanks to his intellect, charisma, and super administration; he was the eldest of the family and as such the throne belonged to him.

Despite existing in the Cosmic Era for two days, Gihren was already making plans to secure Zeon's dominance in the Earth sphere and deal with the unjust aggression of ZAFT and East Asia. Garma might've been able to accomplish the same, but he didn't believe he could ever do as well as Gihren.

"I wish I could join Admiral Podarov in purging Luna of the Federation. We are finally free from Earth's tyranny and I'll be damned if those leftovers who joined us for the ride will deny us our freedom. The Lunarians have been suffering just as much as us and if we allow the Federals to ally with East Asia or the greater Alliance then we may be forced into a stalemate with their nucler arsenal alone." Garma said.

"Why not?" Gihren questioned.

"Why not what?"

"Why not join Admiral Podarov at A Bao Qu? You have already accomplished your mission here Garma, father and I can handle continuing relations with Orb and even if they do decide to backstab us like East Asia, their military might is insignificant and a single squadron of Musai's could wipe them out." Gihren reasoned.

"But I wouldn't be able to contribute much to the battle. Father hasn't given me a command yet and the Army won't be necessary if we can gain orbital supremacy." Garma argued.

Gihren let out a low chucke, "Are you forgetting my brother that at this moment you are in command of the Space Force's flagship, a Gwazine-class dreadnought along with its compliment of 20 Zakus?"

Garma facepalmed at how he was so forgetful of his current situation. The Gwazine was the pride of the Space Force and the _Great Degwin _in particular was the most advanced ship within the vast Zeon armada due to extensive customizations throughout the ship that made it superior to its contemporaries. While the _Great Degwin_ alone would most likely not change the course of the battle as there were numerous other Gwazines present at A Bao Qu, not to mention its 1500 strong fleet compliment, it could deal a significant amount of damage and most likely save hundreds or thousands of Zeon lives.

"If I know you then you most likely brought your custom Zaku aboard the Great Degwin. Am I wrong Garma?" Gihren asked with Garma shaking his head. The deployment of the Great was delayed for about half an hour just so Garma could bring onboard his red and green Zaku. While Garma was optimistic that negotiations could go smoothly, one could never be too prepared, especially as shown with Solomon and Pezun.

"Then you are more than ready to join the battle." Gihren reasoned.

"But won't father be mad if I go off on my own?" Garma questioned, worried about Degwin's wrath as he was very adamant against Garma joining the military and since his graduation from the Academy gave him soft assignments.

"Garma, you are a soldier of the Principality and more importantly a son of the Zabi dynasty. When father became the Sovereign he swore an oath to serve our citizens and liberate them from the tyranny of gravity, an oath that extends to us as his children. Now in this brave new world, we have the perfect opportunity to kill the Universal Century and achieve total independence by wiping out those who oppress the Lunarians and cling to the non-existent Federation.

Dozle has done his duty by protecting Zeon from an invasion by the superhumans of ZAFT. Will you do yours and cement yourself in history as the Zabi who struck the death blow to the Earth Federation, or will you be content to wallow on the homefront as others die in our name?" Gihren questioned.

His older brother's words lit a fire within Garma, a deep and burning passion to serve and protect his nation. Dozle had done his duty to the Principality, risking his life against augments with mobile suits, why should Garma not do his as well, especially to deliver the deathblow against the accursed Federation which had oppressed them for so long?

The last point of Gihren's impacted Garma the most. What right did he have to be a Zabi and help to lead Zeon, to command others when he refused to endure the same hardships as them and risk his life to defend Zeon?

"You're right Gihren, I must act or I will be worthy of the Zabi name. I shall depart for A Bao Qu at once!"

Gihren smiled at his brother's proclamation, "That is the spirit. Don't worry about Father, I shall take care of things and bear any responsibility for your deployment. Once you arrive at A Bao Qu I shall transfer Eric Manthfield and his squard aboard the Great Degwin. He is among the best of the mobile suit corps, even eclipsing Shin and Gato. He shall serve you well and protect your life in battle."

"Thank you Gihren. I shall seize victory and liberate Luna from the Federation. Sieg Zeon!"

**April 3rd, 70 CE. 2300 Colonial Standard. EFSF Taipei. Renee Harper POV**

On the Lunar Meridian that separated the near and far sides of the moon, a fleet of 50 ships crossed the boundary and entered the near side of the moon. These ships were not of the Earth Alliance, ZAFT, or even the newly-existed Principality of Zeon. These ships were a fraction of a much larger force that existed as a remnant of a dead nation. They were a fleet of the Earth Federation Space Force, pledging loyalty to a flag that never existed in the Cosmic Era. The fleet consisted of 31 Salamis-class cruisers, 12 Magellan-class battleships, and 7 Columbus class carriers. The fleet moved in a tight diamond formation with five squadrons of Saberfish acting as escorts as they made their trek to the near side.

In the center of the fleet was the _EFSF Taipei_, a Magellan-class that was led by the expeditionary fleet's commanding officer Rear Admiral Renee Harper.

Within the Federal Forces Renee was one of the highest ranking female officers in an organization that was dominated by men despite the Universal Century's emphasis on gender equality. A diligent officer with a strong strategic acumen, Renee was assigned to Lunar Command in the Far Side Fleet to help in acting as a deterrent to the Principality of Zeon's recent militarism. It was a quiet three years with the prophesied war for Zeon seeming to never come, and during that time Renee did her duty and was content with her lot in life.

Her entire world was then flipped upside down when just as Zeon was making a Declaration of Independence, with the high likelihood that the Far Side Fleet would soon be sent in to crush the rebellion, Renee experienced a bright flash of light. After maintaining order in her fleet's garrison city of Eclipse, Renee soon learned that she along with the rest of the Far Side Fleet and garrisons had been transported to another timeline. Not only did the Earth Federation not exist in this Cosmic Era, but the Far Side was all that was left of the Federation with the nearby independent Zeon being their neighbors.

For the past two days the Far Side Fleet had maintained martial law on the lunar cities, officially keeping the Lunarians in the dark that they were in an alternate dimension to prevent an uprising. Renee had joined the greater Lunar Command during that time in gathering information on their new Earth sphere and trying to keep an eye of A Bao Qu for any potential moves by Zeon. During that time they choose to keep silence on contact with the native powers in the hopes of preventing a conquest.

The overall situation that the Far Side Fleet had found themselves in was not pretty. On paper they had 2,000 ships at their disposal, however only 1310 ships had gone along for the ride due to nearly a third of their vessels either being on the Near Side or patrolling the deep space Earth-Mars route at the time of their displacement. Even if they managed to arrive with full numbers, intel made it pretty aware that Zeon outnumbered them in total.

The fleet was cut off from supplies from Earth and the other Sides, the most important being the nuclear arsenal at Luna II. The Near Side relied heavily on food imports, a majority being from nearby Zeon, so soon they would have to implement rationing. The worst aspect of it all was that pro-Zeon Unionists and Lunar Nationalism was pretty popular among the Far Side population, meaning that EFSF remnants were protecting a seditious population who hated them.

The opinion of the Federal Remnant was that they were to maintain independence and continue the legacy of the Federation, though this was a tough ordeal with Zeon's known avocation for the liberation of all Spacenoids. Without the Earth to support them, there was nothing to scare Degwin Zabi from launching an assault.

When the Remnant detected signs of a battle in L5 and the usage of nuclear weaponry in L4, both near Zeon's asteroids, they knew that somehow the native powers had gotten into a conflict with Zeon, presenting them with a chance for salvation with an alliance with one of the natives.

To make this happen, Renee was given a mission to engage in diplomacy with what communications had intercepted to be the Earth Alliance, a military organization made up of allied superstates that would hopefully be sympathetic to the Remnant's cause. Her fleet was there for the purpose of acting as a show of strength of the Federation, and to defend Renee should negotiations sour.

On the bridge of the _Taipei_, a glum mood infected the atmosphere with all officers present tending to their duties in a solemn silence, the only sound being the whir of the bridge's computers and life support system and the scattered tip tap of someone's typing.

Everyone present had left some ties behind in the old Universal Century. Family, friends, loved ones, they would never be able to see them again and now they were stuck fighting for a nation that no longer existed, the only thing keeping them moving being their fear of Zeon.

This somberness was also present in Renee Harper who did her best to present her usual image of a strong and powerful superior and not break down from the stress. While she was lucky enough to have her husband Fred come along for the ride as he was a doctor who practiced in Eclipse, the two had a daughter and grandchild who lived in Side 1. Her precious Stephanie was gone and now left orphaned with most likely no logical explanation to how her parent's disappeared. Renee's only consolation would be that her baby girl had her husband and son to help her move on with the potential for more children in the future, kids who will never know the tender love and care of their maternal grandparents.

Renee didn't want to be here. She wanted to return to her home with Fred, to drown herself in sorrow and anguish over the loss of their child and stay curled up in their bed and never come out. Unfortunately such a desire was too selfish, for if she left her duty then the thousands of men and women who served under her and looked to her for guidance would collapse and fall into a deadly depression for their losses. She had to be strong and be a warm presence for her crew and the greater fleet. If not for her loyalty to the non-existent Federation, then to help them survive and move on with their sanity intact.

For five hours the fleet slowly made its crawl across the moon. Near the meridian there was a military base that belonged to some organization called ZAFT, one who in the limited information that the Remnant had gleamed belong to a Spacenoid nation in L5. Renee wanted to make contact with them, but her superiors were adamant to create relations with the Alliance as they could not rely on Spacenoids to protect them when they would obviously ally with the Zabis.

After what felt like ages, the silence was broken with a loud ping from the operator's station.

"Sir, I have a fleet of 534 ships approaching us, they appear to have originated from the city known as Endymion. If I remember that's a city from the Atlantic Federation." The Lieutenant informed.

"Can we get a visual?" Renee asked.

"Getting it now."

Within seconds the main viewscreen showed an enhance image that portrayed hundreds of black and gray vessels. The what she assumed to be cruisers and battleships were constructed with a similar Big Gun philosophy to the ESFS. There were some noticable differences though with the cruisers having four large thrusters positioned in a X formation and their armament focused on missile racks that were awkwardly stationed in the front. The battleships were pretty close to the Magellan in design though they had an increased width and tonnage.

The most striking appearance was that of a large ship in the shape of an arrowhead. From the lack of armaments she assumed that they were carriers, though appeared to have less emphasis on cargo shipping than the Columbus.

"Should we disperse Minovsky particles?" Her XO asked cautiously.

Renee shook her head, "I know that the numbers seem intimidating but we came here in peace. Disrupting communications or showing aggression will place us in the wrong and force them to attack. Send a message to the fleet however to begin particle storage for a mass dispersal should negotiations break down." She ordered.

After the order was carried out, Renee steeled her nerves and took deep breaths to prepare herself for what could determine the existence of the Earth Federation.

"Establish communications with the unknown fleet." Renee ordered. After it had been done, she began with her carefully prepared introduction, "Unidentified fleet to whom I presume to be in service of the Atlantic Federation, I am Rear Admiral Renee Harper of the Earth Federation Space Force. This name is most likely meaningless to you, and the suggestion that I belong to the Earth Federation contradicts your Alliance, but there is good reason. While it seems to be impossibly ludicrous, my fleet and I are not from this dimension. We, along with a collection of nine cities on the Far Side of the moon and several hundred colonies in Lagrange 2, originate from a different timeline called the Universal Century.

Through some cosmic anomaly, we found ourselves transplanted into your timeline roughly two days ago. The Earth Federation who I give allegiance to was the sole human government in the Universal Century as the Earth had willingly united into a sole sovereign nation to heal the planet and prevent the horrors of the Third World War from reoccurring. Unification took place in 2045 of the Anno Domini calendar, that was seventy eight years ago with our previous calendar being Universal Century 0078.

With the old Earth no longer in existence, the Earth Federation is now limited to the nine far side cities and the remaining assets of the Earth Federation Space Force. We come in peace and seek to establish diplomatic relations with the native nations of the Cosmic Era, in particular the member-states of the Earth Alliance. " Renee said.

She leaned back into her chair and waited in tense anticipation for a response. Four minutes had passed by without the opposing fleet replying, though there was some good news in that they had stopped course and maintained position, though Renee worried that their guns could fire at the fleet from their range.

After such a long wait, Renee was about to ask for a clarification, only to thankfully receive a response.

"This is Admiral Malcolm Carlson of the _AFS Colin Powell_ in command of the Third Fleet of the Atlantic Federation. Rear Admiral Harper, if I hear you right then you are claiming to be from another dimension?" The Atlantic Admiral asked with a deep tone.

"Yes Admiral Carlson, I know that what I am saying is ridiculous and you have every right to disbelieve me but it is the truth. If you would like I would be willing to transfer information on the Universal Century to verify my claims. The sudden appearance of hundreds of colonies in Lagrange 2, belonging to a nation called the Principality of Zeon who are a colonial Side of the Earth Federation, should be physical proof."

"This Zeon, they are affiliated with your Earth Federation?" Carlson asked with caution. Renee guessed that they most likely contacted Zeon already and if the battles in L5 and L4 were any indication, started a war somehow.

"The Principality of Zeon is De Jure an autonomous colonial nation under the rule of the Earth Federation. In the Universal Century, the Federation established seven Sides or colonial nations in the Lagrange points where most of humanity immigrated to in order to alleviate the planet of its environmental burden. Zeon represents Side 3 and until recently they were loyal to the Federation. However, moments before our insertion into this timeline, the Principality under its ruling monarch Degwin Zabi declared independence from the Earth Federation. As such they are in a state of rebellion from the Federation and any actions undertaken by Zeon do not align with the Earth Federation." Renee clarified, hoping that she would not be shot for association with the Zabis.

"Do the two asteroids with a large military compliment that just recently made an appearance in L5 and L4 belong to Zeon or the Earth Federation?"

Renee sighed, knowing that most likely Zeon had made contact first, "Those two belong to Zeon. While they have no jurisdiction in the two Lagrange points, they were recently positioned there in the last couple of days, most likely to ward off any intervention from the Space Force as they declared independence."

"So your fleet is not affiliated or have any relations with ZAFT or PLANT?" Carlson asked.

Renee shook her head despite the lack of a visual connection, "We have not made contact with ZAFT yet though from what we could gather the Alliance is in some state of war with them. We are neutral in your conflict, though I have no idea what this PLANT is that you are referring to.

"So your people are not Coordinators?"

"If you are referring to the augmented humans of this timeline, then no we are not. The term does not exist in the Universal Century and the Federation has been pretty adamant against unrestrained genetic modification. While we do have gene therapy for medical treatment no individual is modified from birth, though some designer babies did pop up in the black market."

Renee's response opened up another bout of silence. She was worried that they were getting nowhere though thankfully a response came quicker this time within half a minute. "Rear Admiral Harper, if your claims are true then this is quite an extraordinary event that I must proceed with carefully. I don't know if you are aware of the current state of the war, but a tremendous escalation has taken place recently thanks to an attack by ZAFT on the Earth. As such our normal chain of command has been put into...disarray for the time being.

Before I can continue further dialogue with yourself, I must confer with the rest of my fleet, and then my superiors and the meantime I would ask that both our fleets maintain position."

"Understandable, if it would help then I would like to transmit my data packet soon so you can understand our background and who we are. I would also like to request an in-depth series of files on the state of the Cosmic Era. I am not asking for your fleet's protocols or anything classified, merely public knowledge on the international affairs and history of the Earth sphere. As someone who has proudly served the Federation for most of my life, the revelation of a history of Earth that is still divided into nation-states is quite shocking to say the least."

"I shall do so shortly after you transmit your data Rear Admiral. For now I must make my leave, Carlson out." The Admiral finished.

Renee sank back into her chair with relief, the body language of the bridge crew had also relaxed considerably. The lack of shooting was a good sign and Renee hoped that barring the Atlantic Federation being run by lunatics, that Carlson's superiors would approach the situation rationally and she would begin her work to making the Earth Federation a member of the Alliance to deter Zeon. Then her mission would be accomplished and she could focus on rebuilding with her husband some semblance of what they had lost in the Universal Century, though deep down Renee knew things would never be the same.

**A/N: Here the Principality makes its next moves to respond to Solomon and Pezun and begin its first steps in planting its roots in the Cosmic Era. In this chapter we see more of Gihren's Greed at play with him already coming up with plans to secure Zeon's position in the Cosmic Era and cripple both ZAFT and the Alliance, the full extent of this will be revealed in due time. I also wanted to highlight Degwin being disturbed at Gihren's ruthlessness, but his agreement with his son's plans and Gihren typically exerting his dominance in decision making tends to make Degwin submissive to Gihren's agenda, leading to him being rolled over in canon. Time will tell if Degwin will find a new will to stand up to Gihren and guide Zeon to a better path or if he will allow him to take control like canon.**

**For the Garma portion of the chapter, I know that it may seem like Gihren is trying to send his brother to a trap like he did with Degwin in canon, but that's not at all true. Gihren loves Garma the most out of his family and while he doesn't like that so many people within Zeon want to see Garma as the heir, he trusts his brother and knows that Garma will support his claim. With Dozle making a name for himself at Solomon, Gihren as a good older brother wants Garma to see some action and be involved in wiping out the Federal Remnants. This not only furthers Garma's prestige and helps him rise in power, but furthers the Zabi name. Garma won't take command at A Bao Qu, but he'll be central to the coming battle on the moon.**

**Lastly we have a new OC, Renee Harper. Renee is a creation of mine who is meant to represent the Federation and by extension anti-Zabi elements that came along for the ride with Zeon. She'll appear later in Gihren's Glory but right now Renee has her hands full dealing with the survival of what's left of the Federation and establishing a partnership with the Alliance. Speaking of, after Pezun you guys are probably surprised how first contact there seemed to go so well, especially with the Atlantic Federation. The reasons why it went so well will be shown in a couple of chapters but let's just say it was incredibly obvious that Renee's fleet was not ZAFT. Renee will be integral to the plot in the future so we'll see more of her as time goes on.**

**The next chapter of Cosmic Crusade will come after Chapter 50 of Gihren's Glory and shall deal with Zeon's Liberation of L4. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	16. Operation Chromite

**April 3rd, 70 CE. 2145 Colonial Standard. ZSFS Ares. Wilhelm Lutjens POV**

"Sir, Rear Admiral Hayashi has just sent a message. Operation Chromite has begun, L4 shall belong to Zeon within the next 24 hours." The communications officer who would soon be promoted to Lieutenant Commander informed Lutjens.

Taking his eyes off of a datapad concerning the confiscation of East Asia's nuclear weapons, Lutjens turned to the officer with a smile. "Very good, keep me informed of any developments sent to our way by the Admiral."

"Sir!"

Lutjens leaned back in his command chair, the atmosphere of the bridge turned into one of excitement and jubilance. After the bloody battle that they had just recently suffered yesterday, Zeon would have its revenge and liberate the oppressed Spacenoids of East Asia from gravity's tyranny, further establishing Zeon's power in this new timeline.

Operation Chromite referred to the invasion of the L4 cluster by a collection of 73 ships, mostly Musais along with a compliment of Papuas that would transport Pezun's contingent of Marines to secure the colonies. With the colonies isolated and no hope of reinforcements, the Marines would deploy their Zaku squads to lay waste to any defenses in the colonial interior while the infantry went in and captured the local leaders to force a surrender.

The name of the Operation referred to the original Chromite which was the Operation undertaken by UN forces to liberate Inchon from North Korea in the First Korean War, with the operation leading to the salvation of the South from its Communist counterpart. Lutjens decided on the name as he thought it was the most poetic for this situation, for Zeon to be saving Korean (and Japanese) colonies from the successor state to the People's Republic of China.

The plan was highly simplistic and incredibly rushed with no contingencies and a large amount of luck and expectations playing into the operation. If it was undertaken in any other circumstance Lutjens would've refused to gone through. The main reason was due to a lack of a full resupply from the homeland with the first convoy arriving ten hours ago. His forces were down to 3/4th's of their prime strength and that was not including the operational ships with varying degrees of damage. To top it all off they had to keep watch over the East Asian prisoners until they could gradually be escorted to the homeland for interment.

In the end Lutjens supported the operation as there were no non-Zeon forces present within L4 at the current moment, giving them complete control of regional space, and from what limited information they gathered it seemed he had wiped about a quarter of East Asia's ships, so it was unlikely they would launch a counteroffensive soon.

While Gihren's orders were rushed, Lutjens could understand the initiative. It was as Gihren had told him, soon East Asia would sue for peace upon realizing their mistake and once they did so Zeon would be given a white peace with reparations and minor military restrictions at best. Such a lightweight victory was nothing but disgrace to the Principality and the warriors who had died under his command. If they captured L4 though, then Zeon could potentially gain complete control of L4 or muscle East Asia into heavy economic concessions that would grant their resources and markets to Zeon control.

With the war being escalated at this moment, Lutjens' thoughts drifted to his earlier encounter with Chen and his revelation of how this clusterfuck had happened.

**7 Hours Earlier**

When it came to Lutjens' physical impression of Chen, it wasn't much. His East Asian counterpart hardly carried any air of intimidation due to his average build and short height in comparison to Lutjens and other Spacenoids who on average stood near 1.8 meters. Combined with his plain looks he would be merely a face in the crowd versus the colorful array of flag officers that served Zeon.

What did impress Lutjens was how when he walked in, while Chen appeared to be clearly remorseful over the current state, he refused to be cowered down and carried his personal dignity strongly. Lutjens could respect that and Chen's wise decision of surrendering as soon as his fleet came to the battlefield prevented the German spacenoid from hating him on a personal level.

From what he had learned before and over the course of their conversation, Lutjens had come to greatly despise East Asia as a nation. Not only did they exhibit the worst traits of the Federation with their Capitalist elitism and lack of care towards Spacenoids, they were also so braindead that they thought that hundreds of colonies that appeared out of thin air were somehow the work of ZAFT.

If the East Asian Admiralty were handed over to Zeon through a peace treaty then Lutjens hoped he could execute them all with a single shot from the Ares' megaparticle canons.

"Admiral, please be truthful to me, are these Coordinators really so awful and so all-powerful that a collection of your nation's military leaders would all believe us to be ZAFT instead of believing in our word?" Lutjens asked with great disgust. Both he and Chen were seated across from each other in one of the Ares' conference rooms. With no weaponry on his person and being handcuffed with two Marines flanking Chen's person, there was little the East Asian could do to harm Lutjens in this environment. And if he somehow managed to do so, Lutjens gave orders to Molenshav to eliminate a portion of the imprisoned ships with impunity.

Chen let out a tired sigh, seemingly sharing Lutjens' thoughts on the matter. "Some people like to proclaim that Coordinators and Naturals are no different, that we are both the same people, only with different genes. This belief is ludicrous and the worst kind of naivety. The lowest performing Coordinators will perform equally with star athletes and smart students. The genius Coordinators are so superhuman that it would take hundreds of Natural prodigies to equal them.

When you combine the entire population of Naturals then you would surely gather a group of people who would outperform Coordinators, but this is only due to overwhelming demographics and in equal numbers Coordinators would win everytime. In the early years laws were passed to try and achieve a sense of balance in the workforce, yet as much as we tried Coordinators always came out on top and would dominate in leadership positions with vast amounts of success. They're every science fiction authors worst fears on transhumanism come true."

Lutjens frowned at the explanation, finding it lacking. "Even if Coordinators are true superhumans in every sense of the word, they still can't defy reality. From what I've read their fleet numbers around 2000 at best and even with the technology of the PLANTs you can only produce so much with a population of 30 million, half of which are children. When three asteroids with fleets of thousands and over 300 colonies pop into existence, you somehow believe that this is a Coordinator threat?"

"Like I said before Admiral, at first we truly believed that it simply was impossible for the Coordinators to do such a feat. Sure there might have been some skeptics, but space command was resolute on your existence and we were heading towards establishing proper relations. Had your nation popped into our timeline a week ago then none of this pointless bloodshed would have occurred. Unfortunately, reason was lost when the N-Jammers, at least that's what they call them, were dropped on the Earth and wiped out the near totality of our power.

While the Universal Century was able to achieve nuclear fusion, it was an impossible dream for us and as such we fully relied on fission. If Earth's power is wiped out and the power plants themselves are still intact, then that means that ZAFT found a way to prevent the atom from splitting, nevermind the disruption of radio waves that came up with such a device. When we learned about what happened, every wild claim made about the ability of Coordinators suddenly became plausible. If they could rewrite nuclear physics, then would it be so hard to believe that Zeon was a Coordinator creation.

I know that what we did by launching an unprovoked attack was inherently wrong and it will go down as one of our nations darkest moments in history, I won't justify or deny it. If you were in our shoes Admiral, could you react rationally?"

**Present**

While Lutjens never vocally admitted it, Chen did have a good point and if Zeon had experienced the same history then maybe its leaders and Lutjens himself would've acted similarly. From what he had read on the first Coordinator George Glenn, the man seemed to be nothing short of perfect with the feats from the first half of his life being so extraordinary that it would take lifetimes to accumulate a similar amount of success. If it wasn't for his mortality with how the first Coordinator had fallen from a simple pistol, one would think that Glenn was a God among men.

While some amount of sympathy was present, Lutjens could not and would never condone what the East Asians did. Without any confirmation or investigation, they went in on him and his men, spraying nukes like there was no tomorrow and killing tens of thousands of loyal patriots of Zeon. Such a crime had to be payed in full with iron and blood.

Outside of the need for retaliation with the Battle of Pezun, East Asia's abysmal treatment of their Spacenoids alone made them a target of Zeon's righteous fury. Never before did Lutjens ever think that the Federation may not have been that bad in their oppression, but Orb's information on East Asia showed that one could always have it worse.

To Chen's credit, he seemed to genuinely disagree with the horrid conditions of the Japanese and Korean Spacenoids, wanting for some level of self-sufficiency and economic development to take place to give them a semblance of a decent life, but according to him the policies towards the L4 cluster were deeply entrenched with the establishment in Beijing and it would take nothing short of a revolution to change the laws.

Whatever the reason for the war's beginning, it didn't matter now. All that mattered was for Zeon to achieve justice for the fallen and to uphold its missions to liberate all Spacenoids from the tyranny of gravity, no matter which timeline it existed in.

**ZSFS Iwo Jima. Daichi Hayashi POV**

"Sir, all mobile armors surrounding L41 have been eliminated." Said a Lieutenant Commander in charge of the CIC."

Rear Admiral Daichi Hayashi climbed out of his normal suit and smiled widely at the development. Once he was finished he rolled his shoulders and pulled his arms to experience the relative freedom outside of a normal suit. When the mobile armors had come Daichi had ordered the entire crew of the _Iwo Jima_ to put on their normal suits for fear of the ship being struck by one of East Asia's nukes. While Orb's intelligence pointed L4's nuclear stockpile to be with the fleet that they had captured at Pezun, one could never be careful after the nuclear hell that they experienced at Pezun.

Fortunately it seemed like the mobile armors were normal models, allowing them to be destroyed at ease without damage to the fleet so they could continue with Chromite.

When approaching the colonial cluster, Hayashi had opted for his fleet to be divided into seven groups and to form together in a line while transmitting Minovsky particles once they were 100 kilometers from the cluster. Thanks to the Minovsky dispersion the garrisons would assume that they were facing 7 ships with one for each colony. They then launched all or at least a majority of their resident mobile armors to combat the threat. When the Azures got close, they unfortunately realized that they were facing 12 ships with dozens of Zakus instead of isolated Musais.

The goal of this strategy by Hayashi was to draw out as much of their space forces as possible and eliminate them, leaving the L4 cluster defenseless against the Zeon invasion with their fleet captured at Pezun and no East Asian, or even Alliance forces present anywhere within L4.

While the plan had gone swimmingly, it was not perfect as his CIC officer reported to Hayashi that three Zakus had been destroyed in the dogfight that had lasted roughly eleven minutes. To Hayashi, it was a harsh reminder that while a mobile suit was superior to mobile armor, it was not invincible and any Zaku pilot could die due to a superior foe or their inferior skills. He hoped that in the future that all Zeon pilots wouldn't develop a high hubris and remember their mortality.

"Signal the fleet that we are to enter into blockade formation." Hayashi ordered with a positive resposne.

Each group within the fleet moved in front of their targeted colony, entering into a semicircle formation approximately thirty kilometers from the colony's bays.

In theory a blockade in space is supposed to be impossible as the 3D environment of space and the vast expanse of the solar system would make such an attempt impossible. However, Zeon strategists found science fiction to be closer to reality as while one could not feasibly blockade an entire planet like Earth, a blockade of a colonial Side was more than feasible so long as one had a large enough fleet to cover each colony's bay. While such a practice would be impossible in the Universal Century, here with only seven open-type O'Neil cylinders as the enemy, it was more than feasible.

Once the fleet had gotten into formation, Hayashi waited five minutes for a response from the local garrison. When none came he ordered the communications officer to broadcast a transmission from the _Iwo Jima_ to the colonies in every form of communication possible and to bypass any blockage from the East Asians to allow the common people of the colonies to listen in.

Hayashi stood at attention for the visual transmission, "To the East Asian forces currently stationed at the L4 cluster, I am Rear Admiral Daichi Hayashi of the Zeon Space Force. To the oppressed Spacenoids of these ghettos who are unaware of what this means, two days ago our nation, the Principality of Zeon, came to this timeline from another dimension. Zeon is a nation ruled by Spacenoids, colonists who live in Lagrange 2 who were exiled there by our ruling government, the Earth Federation, to transform Earth into a plaything for the ruling oligarchical elite, much like how you were exiled from your homelands in Korea and Japan so that the Chinese could assimilate your lands.

Part of our territory that was transported to this timeline was an asteroid called Pezun in L4 along with its stationed fleet. Shortly after our insertion, we made peaceful first contact with the Republic of East Asia. However, the Republic of East Asia attacked us without provocation for fear we were ZAFT, killing tens of thousands of brave patriots of the Principality in cold murder.

To seek retribution for this grave injustice, and to end the tyrannical rule of East Asia over its Spacenoid minority, we come here to liberate the Spacenoids of L4 from their masters. East Asian forces, your fleet has been wiped out in its near entirety, the rest of your space force is hunkered in the moon and shall soon face ZAFT, East Asia is currently suffering from a loss of near total power, you are isolated and there shall be no hope of reinforcement. Surrender now and your people shall be treated according to the Geneva Convention of the old 20th century. Resist and most of your men's lives shall be forfeit as of consequence.

My fellow Spacenoids of L4, we of Zeon have shared your suffering and we have come to liberate you from gravity's tyranny. My own family was exiled from Japan to space because we refused to bow down before the one world government of the Federation and were proud of our nation's heritage. Many a Japanese and Korean were stripped from their homelands and sent to Zeon for a crime of not being a member of the Earthnoid Elite. Despite their hardships, they eventually prospered and helped lead Zeon to its glorious revolution against the Federation.

Spacenoids of Lagrnage 4, it is time for you as well to break your chains and overthrow your masters. By tomorrow you shall be no longer bound to Earth's gravity and shall instead enjoy self-rule and sovereignty just as Zeon is experiencing right now. The time for justice has come, Sieg Zeon!" Hayshi shouted thunderously, with the transmission then ending.

Climbing back into his command chair, Hayashi was satisfied with his speech, hoping that it would accomplish everything he planned for. Figuring from Orb's information on the oppression that East Asia had placed on these people, one that even eclipsed the Earth Federation's tyranny, Hayashi had gone into Operation Chromite figuring that the chances for an automatic surrender were extremely low, and that was if they believed he was Zeon and not ZAFT.

Deducting that he would have to invade the colonies, Hayashi worded his message in order to inspire a revolution from the oppressed Spacenoids of L4 against the local garrisons. This would force the garrison to spread out its forces across the colony, allowing his compliment of Marines and Zakus to move in and eliminate them with ease.

Hayashi knew that what he had planned was not the most moral way to achieve victory. If East Asia did not surrender soon then many Spacenoids would be mowed down and casualties would most likely climb into the thousands or tens of thousands versus if he launched the invasion immediately. However, the rushed timetable of Chromite and the stressed need of Lord Gihren to capture the colonies as soon as possible forced him to act risky.

His fleet would only have one shot at liberating L4 and they had to make it work on the first try or else it was likely that L4 would not be included in the deal. With this limited window of opportunity, Hayashi decided to inspire a revolution to create an opening for his men.

Hayashi's deepest sympathies went to the Spacenoids who would soon die in their brief revolution. As someone who was deeply proud of his Japanese roots, Hayashi was infuriated with the treatment of his ethnic kin alongside the Koreans in L4, just for the crime of being members of a conquered population. At the end of the day though, Hayashi was an officer of Zeon, and his duty came first and foremost to the Principality, even over other Spacenoids. This was the best path to victory with minimal casualties, and Hayashi would take it.

Hayashi honestly hoped that a surrender would soon come. If the garrison did not decide to do so, then he would give them hell. At the end of the day, no matter the blood spilled by L4, at least they would become a free and independent nation.

**L4 Cluster. Third Person POV**

The previous two days had everyone within the L4 cluster incredibly on edge. At first there was the Event where a couple million people within L4 had suddenly collapsed in pain. The cluster's poorly run and underfunded hospital system had been crowded with victims of the unknown event. Marshal law was immediately declared with curfews imposed and garrison troops mobilized onto the streets. To many of the Korean and Japanese Spacenoids, they believed that this was some sort of virus that had been distributed by East Asia, prompting various groups to attempt to fight against the garrison. It was only thanks to the observation that some East Asian troops were infected and the affected people quickly regaining consciousness with no visible ailments that prevented the breakout of a full revolution.

Despite the return to calm by the end of the day, martial law had not been lifted with a complete communications blackout with the rest of the Earth sphere imposed while all ships were temporarily impounded within the colony bays. The unrest of the colonial population remained, with the only information they had were rumors among the garrison troops of a crushing defeat of the Alliance in Earth orbit, an attack on Earth by ZAFT, and the presence of an enemy fleet in L4.

While the people of L4 wanted to take action, at the moment they had stayed in their homes and begrudgingly did what they were told, not willing to risk their lives on rumors when so many false hopes in the past had claimed tens of thousands and only seen the noose on their liberties tightened.

On the second day the crisis intensified when the garrison troops were observed in a frenzy panic, setting up barricades throughout the colony, taking up posts in a defensive position, and several battalions being sent to the hangar bays with all colonial workers in the bays being ordered home and a total lockdown prepared. Attempts were made to get information, only with the curious either being arrested or shot. Tens of millions of people were holed up in their homes, fearful with the East Asians acting like it was the end times.

Prominent leaders in each colony among the Korean and Japanese Spacenoids soon began to meet and plan together in separate meetings. While no one knew exactly what was going on, most believed that ZAFT had somehow delivered a death blow to the Alliance and the war was coming to a close with the Coordinators coming to liberate L4.

The thought of liberation from ZAFT deeply conflicted the local leaders. While any nation would be preferable to the totalitarian rule of East Asia, there were many in L4 who distrusted Coordinators and saw them as superhumans who would only dominate them and treat them just as bad, if not worse than the East Asians. For now they adopted a wait and see approach with an agreement that revolution was coming soon and when the right moment appeared that they would act.

When Admiral Hayashi announced himself to L4, with many of the Spacenoids listening due to black market radios and the usage of hackers listening in to East Asian channels which were then played back to the colonies through government broadcasting, the Korean and Japanese populations didn't know what to think. Here was a man who proclaimed a ludicrous tale of a nation that came from another world. Numerous foreign words such as _Spacenoid_,_Earthnoid_, and _Zeon_ were thrown around casually. Many thought that it was some sort of East Asian trick to test their loyalties; however the panicked rush to the hangars along with the sight of distant green warships not of Alliance or ZAFT origin presented otherwise.

A few rebel cells, antsy and tired of the wait for freedom, would then launch their attack. Using weaponry smuggled in courtesy of the Yakuza, Korean mafia, and the CIA and SVR, alongside plenty of improvised explosives, attacks were launched at East Asian garrisons with any soldiers or convoys unlucky enough to be patrolling in the streets swiftly and brutally mowed down, with isolated infantry often torn apart and lynched by viscous Japanese and Koreans bent on revenge.

With these attacks the time for revolution was now and within the hour the L4 cluster was burning with tens of thousands of dead piling on the streets. While theoretically the East Asian Army should have been able to crush the rebellion, the collapse of morale due to the events of the past two days, the panic and freak outs of officers dealing with a situation they never prepared for, the confusing mess of orders as the overextended garrison tried to deal with both a "ZAFT" invasion and internal rebellion, and simply being outnumbered caused many units to fall and the fires of revolution to spread.

With most of the colonies falling to the Korean and Japanese revolutionaries and no reinforcements from the Space Force looking to appear anytime soon, some East Asian officers decided that this was their final hours and that if they were to die, then they would take down as many rebel scum with them. Scorched Earth tactics were soon broadcasted to many of the garrisons and artillery, APC's, tanks, and helicopters began to fire indiscriminately towards the residential districts and anything that didn't belong to the Army.

To the credit of the East Asians, this was not a unified policy with the commander of the L4 forces, General Ming rebuking such orders and telling his forces to stand down. This only complicated the East Asian position with most units simply following the commands of their immediate superiors, while for a brave few who tried to do the right thing and enforce Ming's order, they would be meet with gunfire by the crazed butchers who sought to wipe out the colonies.

This was the final straw for the people of L4 with anyone who wasn't a young child or the elderly and infirm rising up in arms against East Asia.

With the Rebellion reaching a critical climax, the Zeon Marines would make their move.

**MS-06C Zaku II. Cima Garahau**

Ever since The Event, Lieutenant Cima Garahau kept on swearing to herself that the universe would not get any weirder. Each and every time she did so the universe seemed to one up her with how batshit insane the past few days have gone. At this point literally nothing should surprise her, something like an alien invasion would be practically mundane.

For the most part everything could be considered calm in the first day. She wasn't one of those people who experienced weird visions and since her family and home came along for the ride, Cima came out okay mentally, although she could swear that some of her fellow Marines and the sailors on her ship gave her dirty looks.

What little she read of the new timeline that they were in, the Cosmic Era, was interesting to say the least. It seemed like both an inversion and a mirror of the Universal Century with the world still divided into nation states, genetic superhumans, and most of humanity sticking on Earth, yet some things appeared to stay the same like the oppression of Spacenoids. The world may not have been united, but as seen in the treatment of the PLANTs, and what she would experience in L4, it's not like the attitudes of the Federation never came into existence.

The second day she went into battle against the East Asians, her role in the battle being the protection of Pezun from assault from enemy forces. While Cima was supposed to perform in colonial assault, she did pretty well where she shot down 23 mobile armors and had two ship kills to claim.

After the titanic battle that saw a good number of her crewmates and fellow Marines lost, Cima had expected that for the moment some sort of rest or period of normality would resume. Her expectations were wrong as she was immediately sent into battle to conquer East Asia's L4 cluster.

At the very least she got a Zaku-II out of this whole affair to replace her Zaku-I which was badly damaged during the Battle of Pezun. If she lived then promotions and rewards were bound to flood in.

_'Shame I didn't have the time to paint it custom. Green is just so dull and boring.'_ Cima lamented. In the end though, she was a patriotic daughter of Zeon and would do whatever was asked of her.

After Hayashi's one hour ultimatum had gone through without a single communication from the East Asian lines, Cima and her fellow Marines were given the green light to play their role in Operation Chromite.

It wasn't really anything she'd call brilliant, but with the enemies lack of mobile suits, their forces being stretched throughout the colonies, Minovsky particles, and no chance of reinforcements, Cima was hopeful that it would turn out all right in the end.

Her job was to lead five other Zakus, with another squad of six accompanying them, to invade the central colony of this cluster with their entry point being a bridge which connected two of the strips. Her squad would deploy with the other on Strip One based on the data that Intelligence had somehow procured on the colonies. Her squad would head colonial south towards the port with the simple mission of eliminating all East Asian resistance, along with a secondary objective of hopefully linking up with the local resistance.

Their role was being repeated on every strip of the colonies with a total of 252 Zakus being deployed. The main goal was to spread out East Asian forces and act as a distraction so that the infantry battalions of the Marines could secure the spaceports. If the ports were secure then the battle was won.

Cima gently guided her fellow Zakus across open space with their formation being a couple dozen kilometers from the colony proper. They were all careful to use slow bursts on their thrusters so that they wouldn't be detected thanks to the Minovsky density. Sure their entry would definitely give away their positions, but it never hurt to even have the smallest amount of surprise.

After seven minutes of travel from their ships, the Zakus made it at their destingated points. The squadron split into their designated groups with Cima and their pilots under her going upward to the section of Strip One that connected to strip three.

"Blow a hole, Patel!" Cima ordered.

Raising his Zaku's bazooka to target the colony exterior, Patel did as ordered and fired his sturm faust, which was specialized with a greater than normal explosive yield to punch a Zaku sized hole through the colony.

An explosion rocked the colony's window portion. In less than a second a large hole was created on the window section with the colony's air blowing rapidly at the Zakus. The six mobile suits quickly rushed into the colony with Cima being the last one in.

When Cima got into the colony she used her Zaku's sealant launcher to quickly fill up the whole with birdlime before the colony lost all of its atmosphere. Two other Zakus joined her, allowing the hole to be filled rapidly with a pink crystallized mass covering it, protecting the Spacenoids of the colony from death by asphyxiation.

Cima quickly barked out orders to her squad. The Zakus split into two with three moving for the entry point of the bridge connecting strip one to strip three while Cima and two other Zakus went for the center of the bridge.

Driving her vernier thrusters to full power, Cima had her Zaku jump high to land on the bridge. When Cima landed she saw about a couple dozen military vehicles spread out along with infantry machine gun formations to block anyone from crossing.

Acting quickly while the East Asians were still in shock, Cima threw a cracker barrel towards a mg position, it fell inside of the position which caused it to be leveld and killed about seven infantrymen. Cima then used her verniers to slide back to avoid any targeting and aimed her 120mm machine gun at the nearest vehicle, an odd looking tank with a long and sleek barrel, and fired, destroying it with seventeen rounds.

Her subordinates followed her actions with their first targets being the elimination of the tanks. While testing had shown a Zaku to be superior to the T61, a T61 could still kill if it was in close range and in numbers. Cima and her men didn't want to take any chances with these Cosmic Era tanks which were said to operate on rail weaponry, a far deadlier form of ammunition than your standard T61 lineup.

Fortunately they were able to quickly transform each linear tank into a burning heap. All that was left were the APC's which tried to fire on the Zakus, and while they did hit there rounds caused scratches and minor dents. While hypothetically a Cosmic Era APC could destroy a Zaku, it needed continuous fire on the same spot, which Cima and her meant would not provide.

Four minutes later the bridge was cleared, with Cima and her two charges, all of whom sustained various levels of minor damage, went to help their comrades at the base of the bridge for strip one which was a military checkpoint that acted as a camp for the garrison.

When they arrived they found their comrades to have done most of the work. What they saw was a smoldering ruin of a former base with all of its guns, armor, and heavy machinery blown to smitherens while corpses were strewn across the area with patches of blood painting the landscape.

Fortunately it seemed there was little left besides stragglers desperately trying to escape the Zakus. Cima frowned when she saw one of her men trying to mow down the surviving infantry despite their lack of means to fight back.

Moving her Zaku towards the offender, Cima created a contact link, "Stand down Marine. Those soldiers can't fight back and all you're doing is creating a pointlessly bigger body count. There's nowhere left to go so they'll surrender eventually. We're supposed to be here as liberators, not butchers." Cima stated.

The pilot on the other line snarled in response, "Why do you care Lieutenant, they're just Earthnoid scum. They're no better than, if not worse than the Federation! Besides, it's not like we signed any treaties with them, I'm not violating any rules of war."

Before Cima could make a response, the comm flared to live, "Lieutenant, Johnson, verniers hard right NOW!"

Acting on instincts and not bothering to question, Cima and Johnson did as told with them both pumping their thrusters to evade several meters to the right.

A couple seconds later, a couple high velocity rail rounds soared to where they previously were and destroyed a couple piles of debris. The other four Zakus fired their machine guns and bazookas for a few seconds, then going silent.

Moving her machine to where they had fired, Cima found a couple of well hidden and now destroyed linear tanks that had apparently arrived on the scene.

Breathing a sigh of relief as her Zaku's sensors hadn't picked them up thanks to the Minovsky interference, Cima her thanks on the comm.

"Thanks for the save Kim. I'll buy you a round when we get back to Side 3." Cima said to the only female member of the squad.

"Lieutenant, Kim was a couple hundred meters away scouting the residential block. She didn't fire a single shot at the tanks." Patel told her.

Cima looked around and indeed she couldn't see Kim's trademark purple Zaku-I with the pilot's machine just now coming into view. Her distance should have made it impossible to detect the tanks if Cima didn't detect them, therefore she shouldn't have known that Cima and Johnson would come under fire.

_'Then again, this isn't the first time Kim's seen the future.'_ Cima thought to herself. She had fought besides the Korean woman in Pezun and she could count four instances where Kim was able to predict an enemy coming and had saved her comrades from certain destruction. There must have been countless other times she had saved herself with such knowledge, and Cima had begun to hear rumors in the battle of similar pilots acting the same.

Did The Event make Kim some sort of psychic? Or maybe a Newtype...

"Well thanks for the save. Let's continue our march towards the port. Every second we waste here is a second one of our Marines at the gates could die."

"Yes ma'am!" Her fellow Zakus said. For now it didn't matter what sort of mumbo jumbo Kim had, she was a fellow pilot and if she used her powers to save her fellow Marines then she was alright in Cima's books.

After traveling a kilometre without making any contact, Cima's squad ran into a couple hundred men and women who were taking up residence in a makeshift base in the surrounding block. Going in Cima knew that the East Asians treated their Spacenoids so poor enough that the other nations of this timeline called the colonies Ghettoes, but she wasn't prepared for the sight of residential districts that were so badly constructed and taken care of that they made the dirtiest slums in Side 3 look like gated communities.

The people in front of her were sent into a panic, but Cima didn't fire on them as from their lack of uniforms she assumed that she made contact with the local resistance.

Wanting to calm them before things got out of hand, Cima activated the external mike on her Zaku, "Attention Spacenoids of L41, I am Lieutenant Cima Garahau of the Zeon Marine. I do not belong to ZAFT, but the Principality of Zeon, a nation which has come from a different timeline that has suffered the same oppression from Earth as you have. We come as your friends and we are here to liberate you from East Asia. I repeat, I am a Marine of Zeon, I come as a friend."

From the external audio that was playing back inside of her cockpit, Cima frowned as she heard the spluttering of an oriental language from the hundreds of bewildered and afraid resistance most second and third generation Spacenoids, Cima had grown up only knowing of the English language with the official teaching of all other languages highly discouraged by the Federation to prevent Nationalism. Cima grimaced as her mother was Japanese and had tried to teach her the language but Cima had always refused, a skill that could have come quite handy now.

"Kim, why don't you make contact with them. You speak Korean." Johnson said.

"The majority of this colony's Japanese. So there's a chance that my words would sound just as gibberish as the Lieutenant's." Kim responded.

"Why not? They're both East Asian so it's practically the same." Johnson said.

"The Fuck did you say you little shit!" Thus began a linguistics argument that went on for half a minute until a man came forward from the resistance, with Cima ordering her subordinates to quiet down.

From the Zaku's audio she was able to pick up his words, "My name is Tadashi, I'm the leader of this cell of the resistance. I would like to speak to your leader on behalf of our movement." The fighter politely requested.

"Patel, keep hold of the squad, I'm going to go down and talk with the guy, try to get their radio frequency so that way we can coordinate with the locals. Watch out for any incoming enemies."

"Be quick about it Lieutenant."

"I will." Cima replied. She quickly opened her Zaku cockpit and using the cable, gently landed down on the ground. She shifted to this Tadashi, who at a close glance wore a simple t-shirt and genes, though augmented with an unevenly distributed set of fatigues, most likely stolen from the East Asians. The man before had a decent amount of muscle, though he was still pretty lanky and just about reached Cima's height, some signs of poor nutrition being present with the bags under his eyes. Despite being a dirty mess, he posses sort of a rugged charm that made him somewhat attractive in Cima's books.

Cima sprinted over to him, with Tadashi meeting her halfway. "So it's true, you really aren't ZAFT, but from another world?" Tadashi asked with some disbelief in heavily accented English.

Cima nodded her head, "Yes, I'm from a nation called Zeon in L3 that suddenly got teleported to your timeline."

"An Isekai?" Tadashi asked with a bizarre look on his face.

Cima had no idea what the hell that word meant, so she just nodded along, "Basically. We came to this timeline two days ago. Yesterday I was involved with a battle at our nearby asteroid base where we wiped out or captured 3,000 East Asian ships, including the local fleet for this cluster. There are no reinforcements coming, you will be free soon."

A wide smile broke out on Tadashi's face with him hugging Cima in excitement, she was bewildered and was about to push him away, but fortunately he broke off and yelled some words in Japanese to the fighters, with them breaking out into heavy cheering and jubilation, including large amount of shouting of "Banzai!"

"I am sorry Lieutenant, but you've just made today the happiest day of all of our lives. The Chinese bastards have been wiped out and soon we shall rule these hellish prisons they put us in. We are forever in your debt." He said, bowing to her in gratitude.

Cima waved it off, "We Spacenoids of Zeon have been oppressed by Earth in our own timeline, we are just landing a hand that we were never fortuante enough to receive in our timeline. That's besides the point, I need to exchange communcation channels with you so that your resistance can coordinate with our fleet outside. We've got a couple of regiments of Marines storming the port and they need our help. However, we need to make sure we don't fire on your people. We have the basic layout of the colony, but I'd like updated information on the enemy. Give us info and we'll save your people."

"Of course! I am one of the only English speakers in our group, so I'll try to act as a middle man between your people and mine." Tadashi hurryingly gave the information for the resistance channels while Cima gave info on Zeon's lines, with the sound of distant but approaching artillery and machine guns drawing ever closer and causing them to quicken their pace. Two minutes later Cima climbed back into her Zaku and they continued on their mission to reach the port with Tadashi alerting his fellow resistance fighters of Zeon's existence while alerting Cima's squad of updates in East Asian positions.

Thanks to Tadashi's information, Cima and her squad were able to eliminate the opposition with ease, drawing thousands of East Asians away from the port and saving dozens, if not hundreds of Zeon lives. The only casualty in their group was Johnson whose Zaku had its legs immobilized thanks to a combination of mines and an unlucky artillery shot, but thankfully he was able to bale and thanks to Tadashi's guidance grouped up with some resistance fighters who protected him until the end of the fighting.

By 0530 Colonial Standard on April 4th, the Battle of L41 was declared to be officially over with General Ming surrendering the local garrison, causing hundreds of East Asian troops to cease fighting, with all of them rapidly making their way towards the port to surrender to Zeon instead of being caught in the hands of the locals who they had oppressed for the past half century.

Fighting still continued to play out for the rest of the day with stranded East Asian units making desperate last stands against the resistance. The rebels were also quick to inflict victor's justice upon collaborators of the regime with tens of thousands across the colonies being killed in rage. A few attempted to fight back, though most were caught up in some manor of kangaroo court where they were swiftly judged guilty and either executed or tortured and humiliated for working with the enemy. This vigilante justice would continue until Zeon Marine and Army regiments came to occupy the colonies and installed law and order under temporary martial law. The remaining collaborators would flock to Zeon lines where they decided that the justice of Zeon courts would be a better mercy than death by mob.

Thus ended Operation Chromite, or as it was known in Zeon, the Liberation of L4.

In the Universal Century, Zeon's mark on L4 would originally been one of mass genocide with Cima Garahau unfortunately being tricked into gassing millions of her fellow Spacenoids without her knowledge and against her will. This insidious action would haunt Cima for the rest of her days, creating a downfall that led to her becoming a pariah in her own nation, living the life of a pirate after the end of the war, and receiving a death by Gundam when she had fought so hard to stop Operation Stardust.

In the Cosmic Era, many within Zeon would undertake new paths that would see them rise above the villainous descent that they were meant to take. Instead of becoming a butcher, a victim of Gihren's megalomania, Cima Garahau would be revered throughout space as a hero, the Chain Breaker.

**A/N: Hello again my loyal readers, Kaiser Chris here with another chapter of Cosmic Crusade. In this chapter we cover Zeon's conquest of L4 which brings about an end to the Zeon-East Asian aspect of the First Contact War. Since the East Asian fleet was eliminated at Pezun, the battle was won by Zeon the moment they surrounded the cluster, but unfortunately a battle had to be drawn out as the garrisons refused to surrender and suffered a mass collapse in command and panic. I promise that East Asia is far more competent than this, but in a scenario where the East Asian Army had thought that their homeland had been wiped out by ZAFT, thousands of ships were elimiminated effortlessly at orbit and Pezun, it truly looked like the end of days had arrived, thus leading to the shit show that was the battle. There will be some good signs of East Asia shown and competence displayed in battle in the future, I promise.**

**In this chapter I also wanted to highlight Zeon's Nationalism and their tendency of separating things into an 'Us vs Them' mindset, especially with their fellow Spacenoids. This is especially seen in Rear Admiral Hayashi who was willing to let thousands of the L4 Spacenoids die if it meant that fewer of his men would die in the process. Zeon may be considered to be the protagonists of the story, but they are not heroes and the villainous tendencies of the OYW still remain, they are just being redirected for better purposes against the Alliance and ZAFT. While Zeon does care for its fellow Spacenoids of this new timeline, to many Zeon characters Side 3 shall always come first. This shall especially be seen in later chapters with the Zabis. We can also see how the L4 Spacenoids aren't so heroic, as shown in their brutal retaliations against collaborators.**

**Of course we have the highlight of the chapter which is Cima's contribution to the battle. In canon she gassed Shiro's colony, though she did so under the belief that it was sleeping gas and not G3. She was horrified by the actions but found no support as her fellow soldiers hypocritically named her a murderer, with Cima being further driven over the edge when Gihren converted her colony into the Colony Laser for A Bao Qu. Here with Cima being a hero and not a mass killer and a high chance that her colony won't become a giant gun, she's far more devoted to Zeon and has a high likelihood of becoming an entirely different woman by the end of the story. Something important to note though, Cima is a Oldtype so she has no idea what happened to her in canon.**

**Next chapter which will come out after Chapter 50 of Gihren's Glory will cover Garma's participation in the Battle of Granada. After that everyone in the Cosmic Era will learn of Zeon's existence. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	17. Battle of Granada Part 1

**April 3rd 70 CE. 1100 Colonial Standard A Bao Qu, Lagrange 3. Garma Zabi POV**

It took about six hours to travel from Kudelia to A Bao Qu, a journey that had Garma on high alert with extreme nervousness through each passing minute. While he was technically doing nothing wrong as he had fulfilled his mission and as a Zabi could act independently (both Dozle and Kycillia had taken far more liberties with their royal status in the past), he still was not intended to join the battle. All it took was a single alert back home and Degwin would order him back to Zum City, leaving Garma in disgrace as a man who hid behind his father's shadow and could not be trusted to head into the field like the capable officer that he was.

Fortunately for Garma, the journey went smoothly and they arrived at the asteroid with no issue. As soon as the _Great Degwin_ was given clearance, Garma took a Komusai to the base as fast as possible to integrate himself into the First Fleet's command and hopefully gain support to stay before his father was the wiser.

When Garma stepped out into the hangar, he was met with the descending figure of Lieutenant Colonel Eric Manthfield, Gihren's head of Guard and his protector for the upcoming battle. While Garma did not like being coddled, he was more than happy to fight alongside Manthfield as Eric was an extremely skilled pilot who had always treated Garma with respect and never looked down upon or babied like so many other of the Royal Guard. He was a good man who was a model soldier, much like Shin and Gato who served under Dozle.

Garma saluted Eric with the blonde Spacenoid returning. "Lord Garma, there is absolutely no need for you to salute me, you are my superior and it is my job to defend your life." Eric stated in his usual chivalrous tone.

"Nonsense, you are my direct superior even if only in one rank. It's bad enough Dozle is the head of the Space Force despite being a Vice Admiral, if our military is to function as a proper institution then it needs all of its members to follow regulations, including myself." Garma said, with Eric smiling lightly in response.

Eric lead Garma outside of the hangar with the two walking through the base to make way to the command center where the Admiralty was meeting. Along the way they passed by dozens of spacemen, all of whom went into wide eyed shock at the sight of Garma, bowing or saluting and giving Garma their greetings along with the occasional affirmation of patriotism. The entire time Eric stood as a protective shield to Garma, eyes watching the corridor like a hawk and keeping his hand inches from his sidearm to strike down all who would dare harm Garma.

"Tell me Eric, how have things been in A Bao Qu and the 1st Fleet?" Asked Garma.

"To say that everyone is on the edge is an understatement. The tension is so thick you could cut it with a heat hawk. When we woke up lots of us had visions, including myself, of some distant war with the Federation. We've been desperately waiting for orders from Zum City and until then we've drowned ourselves in speculation and mild hysteria, it was only thanks to Podarov's firm control that an incident didn't took place.

Then we heard about Solomon and Pezun and the situation is spiraling out of control. Frankly I'm rather glad that we are about to erase the Federation, if we didn't receive orders then I fear that some elements of the fleet may have taken the fight to the Cosmic Era Earthnoids personally."

"That would be rather bad, while I despise ZAFT and East Asia for what they did, from what I have heard from Gihren it appears that it was a horrific mistake that both sides thought we were the other. Those responsible for this catastrophe should be brought to justice, but the many men and women who serve both sides are innocent."

"Is that so? We had been told so just recently but there's been much belief that the news was false and we were being deceived yet again by both sides. In the end it's quite a relief, now we can focus all of our manpower and resources and wiping out the Federation and make sure they stay in the Universal Century." Eric said with hard determination.

Garma couldn't help but share in gleeful delight. Soon Zeon would liberate their Lunarian brothers and sisters and the Federation would cease to exist in this reality. While it was tragic that seven billion of their fellow Spacenoids were left behind to suffer under the Feddie boot, at least now Zeon was free and its people could live in peace.

"How has the homeland been Lord Garma? We've received reports of unrest but the Fleet was told that Lords Degwin and Gihren had the situation under control." Eric asked.

"Things could be better but we made it through mostly intact. Some vagrants took advantage of the chaos to commit various crimes, but Kycillia has mobilized State Security and together with the Army the colonies have been secure. As soon as this war ends then life will go on as normal."

"That is good to hear, and what of this Orb that you have met, hopefully these band of Earthnoids won't stab us in the back." Eric said, deeply skeptical of the trustworthiness of the Cosmic Era's Earth.

"For the most part their leaders were rather pleasant to deal with and the ship that we mistakenly detained was very cooperative. I have faith that they can be good friends to the Principality in the future, but even if they did have daggers behind their backs I doubt they would be a threat. If the information we have received is legitimate then they only have 20 ships and no nuclear weapons. A conflict against them would be more pest control than a proper war." Garma said.

The two continued to chat for a couple of minutes before they arrived at the command center. Standing before the entrance, Garma steeled himself mentally for his insertion into their meeting. He needed to show his superiors that he was a true officer of Zeon, a comrade who they could rely upon to fight in the coming battle, not some pampered prince who was playing soldier.

_'I won't let you coddle me anymore Father. I am a soldier of Zeon and it is time that I earned the right to wear my uniform.'_ Garma declared inwardly.

Garma stepped forward and the door whooshed open. At the sound a couple dozen men and a few women turned their heads to view the purple prince make his entrance. Garma was slightly intimidated by the sight, however his training kicked in and he forced himself to remain calm. He had come this far, he would not cower like a child, not here, not never.

"Major Garma Zabi, reporting for duty!" Garma declared, raising his arm in a crisp salute with Eric similarly standing at attention behind him.

Garma's appearance caused a short round of murmurs, which was stopped by a simple raising of the hand by Admiral Podarov, bringing the room to complete silence.

Standing at 1.93 meters, Mikhail Podarov was a tall, thin, and deathly pale figure with coal black hair and scarlet eyes. He had a fearsome reputation within the Space Force as the "Russian Vampire", a man whose very presence caused the room temperature to drop down a few degrees. This fearsome demeanor had worked well for Podarov's command, forcing all of his subordinates into complete submission with rapt attention to duty. Despite his demeanor, Podarov was also an excellent leader who would reward those who displayed innovation, a man who many had faith to bring total victory against the Federation in their hypothetical war.

"Lord Garma, it is an unexpected pleasure for you to join us. Can I assume that you were sent by Lord Degwin or perhaps Lord Gihren?" Podarov asked coldly.

"I have come to partake in the upcoming battle to wipe out the Federation. The _Great Degwin_ is at your disposal Admiral and you may use me in any way you see fit to obtain victory." Garma said.

Garma observed that Podarov noted how Garma chose to circumvent his question, however for now he seemed content with Garma's presence as seen with his nod of approval.

"That is good to hear my Lord. Would you like to participate in our planning for the liberation of the far side?"

"If that is what you wish Admiral."

"I insist."

Garma bowed his head in thanks and tried to find an open spot. Several of the flag officers looked eager to sit next to the Zabi, however unfortunately for them Garma decided to sit in an open spot to the right of Commodore Aguille Delaz, a man who was known to be within Gihren's inner circle. Since Garma didn't know most of the people in this room, he felt most comfortable sitting next to Delaz. After all if his brother Gihren trusted him then surely Garma could?

Garma sat next to the Spaniard who sported a rather pleased smirk while giving polite greetings to Garma. Eric seated himself on the left to Garma, with several men and women looking on in envy.

"Admiral Kogame, could you please give Lord Garma a quick summary of what we have discussed thus far." Podarov said to one of his main subordinates in the 1st.

"My apologies." Garma said.

"Not at all my Lord." Kogame, a portly man of African descent with a graying afro said in a smile. "We have only just started so you haven't missed too much. To summarize, here is the strategic situation." Kogame then directed Garma's attention to the viewing screen which displayed a model of the far side of the moon.

"Currently our satellites have picked up a total of 1600 vessels near the Lunar cities, though the numbers could change from 50-100 in either direction. Since the event most of the vessels have concentrated themselves in Granada with a current estimate of 900 total ships being stationed above the city. Of note was a small expedition of 50 ships from Eclipse with a destination across the lunar meridian."

"The Federation is trying to make contact with the Alliance?" Garma asked in shock.

"That is what we presume at the current moment. This is why we must move quickly to pacify the far side or else the Alliance, or at the very least East Asia will attempt to intervene and protect the Federal Remnant's illegal sovereignty. Considering current reports of the nuclear usage at Pezun, it is best to eliminate the Federation with haste."

"Hopefully those idiotic Earthnoids will fire on the Federation just as we were in L4 and L5." Eric joked with a light laugh being spread across the room, with even Podarov curling his lips just slightly upward at the thought.

Podarov motioned for Kogame to continue, "There has been zero civilian traffic since the event outside of a few stray ships escaping lunar orbit to Side 3. Thus we can presume that the lunar cities are under martial law. Our satellites picked up some reports of unrest, however each of the cities has seen a local increase in Minovsky density, most likely to mask their movements and put on a show of strength.

No major movements have been detected in the past four hours. Unless the Remnant receives trans-dimensional reinforcements through a second Event, right now they are reliant on ammunition supplies within the cities, with their Helium-3 stockpile dangerously low. The most important note is their nuclear stockpile which should be sitting at about 1000 warheads. Originally it was just 500, however according to intelligence the count was doubled with shipments from Luna-II after our moving of Pezun and Solomon to their respective locations. Just as you entered Lord Garma, we were going over the beginnings of Admiral Podarov's plan."

"Which I shall explain as such." Podarov said.

The Admiral then went into detail on the plan, which was titled "Operation Melies". Melies was a conquest of the moon where they would divide the 1st Fleet into two. One half would implement a siege around Granada and keep the majority of the Remnant Fleet at bay. The other half would pick off the Lunar cities one by one until Granada was all that was left. When the moment occurred then the Fleet would go all in to capture Granada if the Remnant hadn't surrendered by then, completely liberating the city.

The main reason for the island hopping strategy was to keep the fleet mostly intact and prepared for a sudden offensive by the Earth Alliance, at which point they could quickly regroup and meet the enemy head on or wait for reinforcements from Pezun and Solomon. The slow method of the operation would also allow for a armistice to be reached with the Alliance and ZAFT so that way resources could be shifted for a multi-pronged total attack on the lunar cities where the battles would be total victories.

What Podarov explained made sense, it was overall a good plan and there were strong tactics involved for how to limit collateral damage to the cities and capture them with the Marines so that they could be added to Zeon. However, throughout the whole meeting something was gnawing at Garma, a feeling that while Melies was good, that it was not the best plan, or that it was unnecessary.

By the time Podarov was done, Garma had a faint idea why he thought it was unnecessary. When Podarov asked for input and questions, Garma was gaining a clearer picture. Eventually he realized why he didn't like the current plan, but Garma's anxiety kicked in, preventing him from questioning Podarov openly despite it being in his right.

Garma knew that his argument had logic, but he couldn't find it in himself to so openly defy a superior. He may have scored top marks at the Academy, but who was to say that he was such a strategic genius in real life. Surely those who were his superiors knew what was best, they had earned the rank while to Garma it felt like he had just been given his uniform.

"Yes, Lord Garma." Garma's inner conflict was interrupted when he noticed Podarov addressing him, also noticing his hand raised high and shaking slightly. Realizing that he had subconsciously raised his hand, Garma felt embarrassed but knew that there was no turning back. Better to state his peace and be rebuked then to meekly deny any input at all.

Standing at attention, Garma spoke his thoughts. "First off I would like to state that the plan is excellently put together and it is one that is sure to bring us victory." Garma said, using the statement in the hope that his next words would not bring offense.

"But..." Podarov lead on, sensing correctly that Garma had some form of opposition.

"I do not believe that the plan is the best method to achieve victory against the Federation, sir." Garma said. His statement caused a flurry of whispers to spread among the officers. Most likely they believed that Garma thought of himself as some superior strategist to Podarov, that he had an undeniably superior plan and was above the Admiral. Garma didn't think this at all, it was a good plan, it just wasn't something he found to be necessary.

"Why do you say so Major Zabi?" Podarov questioned, with Garma noticing the drop in royal address to rank.

Feeling he had displeased the Admiral, Garma then attempted to explain himself to prevent any misunderstandings. "As I said before Admiral, the plan that has been presented is an excellent one that is sure to bring us victory. However I feel that it is unnecessary for victory due to the extensive casualties that would be involved."

"War is a dangerous affair Major, while unpleasant the loss of life is something that is to be expected, something your brother can attest to." Podarov responded coolly.

"I am well aware sir. I am not a man who finds the idea of blood drawn to be unpleasant, I look forward to taking down as much of the Federation as possible and if I should die in battle then I would be another casualty of war as expected." Garma said, with Podarov and the rest of the room showing surprise at Garma's seeming lack of care for his mortality. "It is not the loss of life per say that I am objecting to, but rather the frequency of it. Under the current plan we would lose as many as nine times of the necessary casualties when such a loss of manpower, ships, and mobile suits would be far less if we were to just strike at Granada."

Podarov narrowed his eyes, trying to see where Garma was going, "You would have us solely lead an attack at Granada and expect victory?"

"Yes sir, in a manner of speaking. While I could admittedly be more than wrong and resistance from the Federal Remnants could continue after a capitulation of Granada, I believe capturing the city would be more than enough. This is not due to Granada's economic strength as the rival, or should I say _former_ rival to Von Braun, rather the magnitude of such a victory with the city being the location of a majority of its forces, with victory leading to a most likely surrender of the rest of the Federation.

While we fight to liberate our Lunar brothers and sisters who have suffered for far too long under the Federal boot, and for more pragmatic purposes of geopolitical security and the acquisition of the moon's resources, the men and women serving under the Federation are serving a dead government. Their Earth no longer exists and all that they have left to rule over are tens of millions of Lunarians who despise them and their Fleet. They are cut off from Helium-3 shipments from Jupiter, their supplies are limited to what was carried over in the event with minimal food consumables and most likely almost no luxuries. These soldiers have most likely been cut off from their families and will never see their loved ones again. Lastly there is the chaos and confusion that is most likely rampant thanks to the...psychological side effects of the event.

In short Admiral, the soldiers of the Federation are most definitely suffering under a near collapse of morale. Rather than fighting multiple battles that will more than likely restore their fighting spirit at the loss of their comrades and spend time that could lead to an alliance with the Earth Alliance, we should instead create one decisive blow that would cause any idea of continuing the war to be non-existent. If we take out Granada, then the rest shall capitulate and the moon shall be ours."

At Garma's explanation, Podarov's eyes widened then settled back into normal in what appeared to be understanding. Murmurs continued in the audience around Garma with many voicing support for the Zabi's plan.

"Your argument is sound with strong logic and deduction Lord Garma. However, while a single victory at Granada might lead to the surrender of the rest of the Fleet, the majority of their ships and nuclear weapons shall be stationed at the city. Thousands or tens of thousands of Zeon men and women may live, but it will still be a bloodbath." Podarov argued.

"Perhaps sir, but I believe there is a method to achieving victory over Granada with minimal casualties while still forcing the rest of the Federation to surrender. As I said before, their morale is incredibly weak and the only thing the Federation Fleet has left to fight for is the memory of a dead world. Since we have received no reports of mutiny or revolt, we can assume that they are being held together, most likely by the will and determination of their flag officers, who appear to be stubborn in their refusal to open up communications with us or even attempt to negotiate. Therefore, we must eliminate their chain of command and in doing so force a collapse in order which shall lead to surrender.

Unless the Fleet has changed protocol dramatically in the past few days, then they are most likely adhering to standard protocol of keeping their flag officers stationed on _Magellan_-class battleships. Therefore if we use our mobile suits to take out the Magellans, then their order will collapse." Garma explained.

Silence reigned for what seemed to Garma to be forever. He was fearful that his proposal would be instantly dismissed, that he would be seen as too risky or foolish, fortunately, such a situation was not the case.

"Very unorthodox Lord Garma. However, we are in an age of warfare never before practiced and from the reports I have read of Solomon and Pezun, it appears that unorthodox strategies can have their presence on the battlefield. Would anyone else like to comment on Lord Garma's proposal?" Podarov asked, with Garma sinking into his seat in relief that he had been accepted.

Fortunately, the first person to rise to his defense was Delaz, "While what Lord Garma has proposed sounds like a gambit, there is heavy merit into the idea of focusing our mobile suits on only their Magellans. Simulations and war games have shown the Zaku to fly circles around a Federation ship, with their AA fire being highly ineffective and incredibly so in spaces of high Minovsky density. Therefore an elite force of Zakus could easily infiltrate enemy lines and destroy their intended targets with ease.

The only craft that the Federation has to stand against the Zaku in single combat is the Saberfish, with tests showing the Zakus annihilating the opposition unless overwhelmed in high numbers. Pezun has shown the innate superiority of the mobile suit, a fact that has been reinforced with the history of the war between ZAFT and Earth. So long as the enemy is contained and we maintain superior numbers then no difficulty shall be present in executing such an operation." Delaz said.

"While the Zakus may be able to handle the job on their own, what about the safety of the Fleet itself. We can still be open to megaparticle fire along with their nuclear arsenal." Said a female admiral in objection.

"If we blanket our fleet in high concentrations of Minovsky particles then their visibility shall be poor and little damage shall be inflicted unless they venture into close proximity, at which point our Zaku squadrons can wipe them out in close combat. Besides, we have more than 5,000 nukes at disposal, which should be able to eliminate any dense Feddie formations with little issue." Said a male admiral in input.

For the next hour they debated the merits of Garma's plan, and slowly but surely they were drawn to his idea with Podarov being one of his first supporters. While the plan did need fleshing out and not all of Garma's suggestions were agreed with, overall Melies would be transitioned to Garma's plan.

Seeing his idea be so well received sent Garma into jubilation with the young Zabi being over the moon on the whole affair. While in the Academy his peers had almost always agreed with his ideas, Garma had a strong feeling that they only did so to seek his approval or out of fear of his displeasure, with only Char and a few other brave souls daring to question him, with Char tending to have numerous strong points as a devil's advocate.

Here Garma had just presented his plan to his superiors, and while there was resistance in the end they had discussed it constructively and agreed to its implementation. It was one of the best times Garma had ever felt as an officer.

Unfortunately his good mood would soon be ruined when within four hours he received a call from his father.

"**GAAAARRRMAAAA!**" Snarled Degwin Zabi, anger extremely visible on the face of the Sovereign with veins threatening to pop on his head and his trademark shades almost falling out of place."How could you act so immaturely and run off to play soldier?! I gave you a mission and that was to establish diplomatic relations with Orb, not gallivant off to A Bao Qu in some whimsical adventure where you'll get killed!"

"But father, I did complete my duty as you have asked. Diplomatic relations with Orb have been established and the Raifuku Maru shall soon be on its way to Heliopolis once its escort has arrived. There was nothing else left for me to do and since I am not a diplomat I was no longer required. As such I performed my duty as an officer and Prince of Zeon and ordered the _Great Degwin_ to join the Lunar campaign. I know that I am about to risk my life in battle, and I did not come seeking prestige or pleasure. I came to serve the Principality and perform my duty." Garma meekly explained. The prince did his best to maintain a calm demeanor, but the shaking of his legs and refusal to make eye contact spoke of his insecurity in the situation.

"Why you came is beside the point. You went to A Bao Qu without permission or orders, such conduct is childish and absolutely unbecoming of you. Did Gihren put you up to this, did he order you to go into battle?!" Degwin fumed. It was a sad thing to say that this wasn't the first time Garma had seen his father get mad at Gihren on such a level.

"No father, Gihren did not order me, I came of my own volition." It was a partial truth as it was only thanks to Gihren's suggestion that Garma even came at all.

"Garma that is the biggest lie if I ever saw one. You would never do such a thing on your own, I know that this is your brother's scheme there is no need to protect him." Degwin stated. Inwardly, Garma was confused. Why did his father believe he could never commit such an act.

"You are not meant to be on the battlefield my son, you aren't a true soldier and you shouldn't be pointlessly throwing your life away when your presence is unnecessary."

"I'm not a true soldier." Garma said, repeating his father's words in utter shock. The statement drove a deep knife into his heart, a feeling of intense betrayal, the likes of which Garma had never experienced.

"I knew it was a mistake to send you to the Academy. For someone who graduated in the top of the class you can't even show proper discipline. You will not be fighting in this war and that's final. Come home to Zum City immediately."

"Why don't you trust me to fight father?" Garma asked, desperate for some strong reason to keep him from performing his duty.

"Because you don't belong on the battlefield Garma, it's not meant for you." Degwin's words caused a great amount of pain for Garma, a feeling that the past four years of his life had been wasted, to have his career mean so little to his father.

After a tense silence, Garma spoke, "Father, do you love Dozle?" Steel and resolve began to enter Garma, a newfound surge that conflicted with the swelling tears in his eyes.

Degwin appeared extremely appalled at the question, "Of course I love Dozle, how could you say something like that?"

"Father, if you love Dozle, then why, why are you so content with him leading men into battle? Why can I not serve my nation while Dozle could risk his life against the enemy, in a Zaku no less? Why were you fine with the aftermath of Solomon despite the fact that Dozle could have died to the Coordinators? Why do you allow Zenna to accompany him into battle when she could also lose her life and leave Dozle a widow or vice versa? Does Dozle's mortality not concern you while the thought of any hint of harm coming to myself sends you into hysterics?!"

Garma's harsh words had Degwin at a complete loss. The Sovereign appeared on Garma's screen in silent shock, visibly hurt by his son's words. "Garma, I-" Before Degwin could continue Garma continued in his onslaught, the first time in his life that he ever stood up to his father.

"It's not even Dozle who you give difference to. We all know how Kycillia liked to handle operations personally and takes plenty of risks as head of State Security, yet you don't blink an eye when she goes to work every day. Gihren has a list of enemies who would all like to see him be struck down like Sasro, yet you never hold Gihren back and prevent him from doing his job. Why do you let them do as they must yet keep me lock in a gilded cage? Although I think I already know the answer, it's because I'm your favorite isn't it?" Garma accused, both Zabi's already knowing the answer.

"I don't know why you love me more than the others. Gihren is so brilliant and an amazing leader, he leads Zeon to greater heights than I could ever imagine. Kycillia has protected us from dissidents and the Federation, making Zeon the safest of all of the Sides. Dozle is the greatest officer in the Space Force and he proved it by leading our forces to victory against the superhumans at Solomon. Even Sasro was a skilled politician and had he lived I know he would have done amazing things as Gihren's right hand. My brothers and sister are all powerful leaders who I could never hope to obtain even a fraction of their success and quality, and yet you put me on a pedestal above them for simply existing and at the same time never let me have a chance to prove myself, to be their equals."

Garma looked down away from the console, refusing to look at Degwin in the eye as tears streamed down his face. It hurt to lambaste and criticize the man who he had idolized for so many years, yet at the same time there was a sense of fulfillment for Garma, that he was now able to let go of his insecurities that he had kept hidden away from the public to put on a brave face.

"I know that war is a dangerous business, I made peace with the fact that I could die on the battlefield when I graduated. I don't want to go, I don't want to leave any of you, but if I do then I will have done so as a soldier of Zeon, defending the freedom of my people and striking down the Federation that you and Zeon dedicated your lives in conflict against. If I come back and you decide to court martial me for disobedience, then I will accept so and any other punishment that you may deem fit. Just please, allow me for once to prove my worth, to serve my country, to earn my right to be a Zabi.

Goodbye father, I hope to see you soon in victory against the Federation, to have truly earned the pride you give me for the first time in my life."

Before Degwin could speak, Garma cut off the connection. After he did so the young prince laid down on the floor of his quarters and let loose a heavy stream of turbulent emotions that had been damned up inside of him for several years. After several minutes of anguish, Garma got up and collected himself, putting on a new uniform and doing his best to keep himself calm and focused so that he would not appear weak before his superiors. If Degwin was turly insistent and ordered him to return to Zum City, then Garma would reluctantly oblige, lest he become an outlaw. Until such a demand by force came, he would serve his country and wipe out the Federation, making himself truly worthy of being a Prince of Zeon.

**EFSF Brazzaville. Han Nikolaou POV.**

Inside of the personal quarters of Admiral Han Nikolaou, a heavy stream of smoke was consuming the room. This smoke originated from the Sino-Greek Admiral smoking a Cuban cigar in slow melancholy. Such an act was a severe violation of protocol as the tobacco smoke could contaminate the ship's atmospheric system and lead to an overall decrease in the health of its crew, but Nikolaou didn't care. If he was to die soon in a last stand against the Federation, then at the very least his last memories would be the goodness of smoking a Cuban.

_'If God is real then why the hell is he a fucking Zeek?'_ Nikolaou angrily thought, gnawing slightly on his cigar in frustration and anger.

Life was bad enough with Side 3 on the verge of entering into total independence. With the likelihood of war being high, his fleet would be the first on the frontlines and thus many of his closest friends and comrades would most likely be casualties in the first days. As awful as the scenario was, Nikolaou at least had faith that the war would be a swift victory for the Federation and the Fascist scum that was the Zabi's would be brought before a firing line and Side 3's autonomy abolished, a righteous ending to the legacy of the lunatic cultist Zeon Zum Deikun.

However, such a situation would never come to be. At the precise moment where Zeon declared independence and war was certain, a strange light infected the Lunar cities and most of the fleet. When Nikolaou and the Fleet woke up, they would soon discover that they had been transported to an alternate timeline where mankind was still divided into nation-states and some sub-species of augmented humans called Coordinators came into existence. Being separated from his family and the nation that he had loved and served for near half a century was already a tough ordeal. The fact that Nikolaou and his Fleet had been accompanied by _Zeon_, with the entirety of Side 3 and only Side 3 of the Sides going along for the space-time ride, it was hell on Earth.

Had literally any of the other Sides been transported to the Cosmic Era, then Nikolaou would have gladly surrendered his fleet to the civil authority of said Side and help to recreate the Earth Federation in this bizarre timeline. If they did not want to recreate the Federation and create a new entirely, Nikolaou was even willing to put up with it, even the traitors that were Side 6. The Federation might not have survived, but at the very least they would be able to preserve a sample of the Universal Century, and the Federation could live on in spirit with its enlightenment being passed down to future generations, perhaps serving as an example to unite the Cosmic Era's humanity.

Unfortunately it was not meant to be. Out of all the nations that could have been sent to the Cosmic Era, out of all of the Sides that Nikolaou found himself stuck with, it was the goddamned Fascist Principality of Zeon.

While Nikolaou loved his nation, he had to admit that there was a feeling of absolute disgust within him over Lhasa's incredibly apathy towards Side 3's Nationalism. They did absolutely nothing to silence Zeon Zum Deikun who riled up the Spacenoids and turned them against the Earth. While Deikun could be ignored as he was a delusional nutcase who focused more time over his new-age crap than mastering politics, the same could not be said of the Zabi's, machiavellian schemers who transformed Side 3 into their fiefdom with everyday of their rule spent plotting to undermine the Earth Federation.

Despite the fact that Degwin and his brood were all extremely competent and had transformed Zeon into a credible threat to peace in the Earth sphere, Lhasa still did nothing. Degwin openly spat on the democratic ideal practiced by the Earth Federation and yet Lhasa did little more than condemn and shake their heads in disapproval. The nutcases of Side 3 openly adopted the Nazi salute as their catchphrase and yet still Earth was unphased.

This despicable, twisted, immoral nation was now the majority of what remained of the Universal Century. Zeon was now truly independent to do as they pleased, to assert their toxic Nationalism unto the Cosmic Era and make this Earth sphere into Degwin's plaything.

The worst part of it all was that if Zeon was allowed continued existence, and/or if they managed to conquer the moon, they would write the history books. Without any true access back to the Universal Century, the people of the Cosmic Era would only rely on Zeon for the reliable account of the UC timeline. The Fascists would twist the narrative to make themselves poor victims who had been oppressed by the Federation and through some divine miracle were whisked away to freedom in the Cosmic Era.

No, Nikolaou could not allow them to control the narrative and indoctrinate this version of humanity in their utter blasphemy that was Contolism. He had to stand his ground and fight, to stop the Zabi's spreading their tyrannical reach over this new Earth sphere and to protect the memory of the Earth Federation. To do that he had to make his stand with his fleet, to protect the moon from their conquest. He may not be able to overthrow the Zabi's and integrate Side 3 under Federal rule, but if the Far Side was to be the last bastion of the Federation, then there was still some hope left, and they could continue the good fight against Zeon for years to come until the house of cards that was the Zabi dynasty collapsed on itself as authoritarianism regimes tended to.

His greatest hope was to hold off the Zeon Space Force while the majority of their fleet was either in L4 or L5. He would inflict as many casualties as possible to prevent Granada from falling, and in such a time span Renee Harper would hopefully arrive with an alliance from the superpowers of Earth. With their support they could force Zeon into recognizing the Earth Federation's independence (Nikolaou grew nauseous at how the tables turned), and isolate them from the Earth sphere diplomatically and economically. The Federation in such a scenario would unfortunately be open to influence from politicking from the superpowers, but better to be lead by Earth than the Fascist Spacenoids that defied the Federation.

Nikolaou's contemplation on the current state of affairs was interrupted by a loud beep on his desk. He picked up the phone and responded, "Nikolaou speaking."

"Admiral, long-range scans show the majority of the Zeon fleet departing from A Bao Qu. Unfortunately it appears they are headed to Granada in a single formation." The _Brazzaville_'s communication officer informed his superior in an audibly nervous and frightened tone.

Nikolaou scowled, _'Damn it all to hell.'_ He had been basing his strategy for Zeon's arrogance and Jingoism to cause them to spread out their fleet across the moon in an effort to take as many cities as possible quickly, thus stretching their numbers thin and ripe for destruction with nuclear fire. The other best case scenario would be for them to keep at bay to protect Side 3 and keep watch on the rest of the Earth sphere, thus buying Renee enough time to complete her mission.

Having the majority of the enemy fleet come to Granada was one of the worst case scenarios. At best he could expect reinforcements from one or two of the nearby cities, but they would be arriving either right before, at the beginning, or in the middle of battle. While he could hold up the fleet on his own, heavy casualties would most likely be taken unless luck was on his side.

'At least if we win Side 3 will be open to nuclear assault. With every colony that dies it shall strengthen our hand and bring the Zabi's closer to overthrow.' Nikolaou thought.

"I'll be on my way, have the rest of the fleet notified in case Minovsky density has prevented awareness. For now we shall wait and see the enemy's approach, however have the fleet go into formation Tau-Two-Four."

"Yes sir!"

Nikolaou took one last huff of his cigar, savoring the rich flavor for as long as possible and breathing the smoke out slowly. He hoped that this wouldn't be his last smoke, there were so many different brands on this new Earth that he had yet to try out.

Before he exited the room, Nikolaou turned to face a flag of the Federation that he had propped up on the wall. He then stood at a brisk salute, eyes tearing as the flag stood for a nation that no longer existed.

"I will uphold the sovereignty of the Federation and vow that its state shall continue for countless generations. This I swear."

In tired melancholy, Nikolaou marched out of his room to enter into his final battle.

**A/N: Hello everyone, Kaiser Chris here with another update to Cosmic Crusade. Originally I had planned for the update to be both this section and the battle proper, however I felt that it would be too long of a chapter and as such I decided to leave the buildup here with the next update being the battle itself, which should hopefully come out in the next few days.**

**To start off with we have Garma making his way to A Bao Qu and offering his own insight in how to take down the Federation which alter's Zeon's strategy. It's here that Garma's compassion and lack of ruthlesness should be noted as unlike the original plan he strived to make an operation with the least casualties to all sides, whereas Gihren would have been more fine with the original plan. There's also some benefits to be said for Garma making sure Zeon took the least losses so that they would be open to any potential escalation with ZAFT and East Asia. Thus we see Garma's skill as a commander and how his way of thinking is influenced by his character. We also get to see a couple of new players, Eric as Garma's wingman, the infamous Delaz who will have a far greater presence in the future, and Admiral Mikhail Podarov, an OC who makes up the third and final part of the Asteroid Admiralty, more to see from him in the future.**

**On Degwin and Garma's conversation, I know it may seem OOC for Degwin and a forced conflict, but there's good reason for this coming up and why Degwin acted the way he did. In canon Degwin allowed Garma to fight in the One Year War as it was a war for survival, even if Garma stayed at the homefront if Zeon lost then the Zabi's would all be imprisoned and tried for warcrimes with Garma most likely being involved. If Garma was to die in defeat then at least he could help lead Zeon to victory in battle. At this point Degwin also became pretty despondent and a near puppet for Gihren, and with Gihren as supreme commander Degwin was powerless to prevent Gihren from deploying Garma in battle, thus he had to just accept it and let Garma do his job with the best resources and manpower. Here however Zeon is not fighting wars of survival and they've already proved their strength at Solomon and Pezun. It's not a war of survival and as such Degwin sees no need for Garma to go on the battlefield and thus tries to shelter him such as sending him on the job with Orb. Much of Degwin's harsh words came from his fears for Garma's safety and anger at his insubordination, which unfortunately made a bad situation worse with Garma growing a spine and addressing the favoritism directed towards him. Their conflict will be addressed the next time the two physically meet, but for now I'd like to assure that Garma will be participating in the Battle of Granada, which will shape his character for the rest of the story.**

**Lastly we have Han Nikolaou, a Federation Admiral who does his best to protect the Remnant against the Zeon onslaught and preserve what he sees as the last vestiges of the true Universal Century in the Cosmic Era. Had Zeon not come and the Event had just involved the lunar cities, then Nikolaou would have likely stepped down and helped the Lunar cities to be their own nation with self-rule. However the appearance of Zeon and their ability to rewrite the Universal Century and portray the Federation as they saw fit triggered Nikolaou's sense of duty and lead to him and the other officers forcing the Fleet to fight an impossible war. At the moment I'm debating on having a couple of other Feddie canon characters join in on the story, but rest assured that Zeon will not be the only POV of the Universal Century and there will be plenty of Feddies to say their peace.**

**With this update posted I shall get to work on the next chapter as quickly as possible. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	18. Battle of Granada Part 2

**April 4th, 70 CE. Granada. Luna. Third Person POV**

On the early morning of April 4th, 1588 ships of the Zeon Space Force were deployed to Granada to eliminate the Earth Federation (at least within the Cosmic Era). Under the leadership of Admiral Mikhail Podarov and with Garma Zabi participating, the grand fleet set out to liberate the far side of the moon and obtain total independence for Zeon.

Facing Zeon would be 907 ships of the Earth Federation under Admiral Han Nikolaou. Unfortunately for the de facto leader of the Federal Remnant, there would be no reinforcements from the rest of the moon, either due to a lack of distance or due to fear of death in battle against Zeon that kept the fleets in port. In order to make up for the severe numerical disadvantage, Nikolaou spread his fleet in a huddled manner of a 50 kilometer radius in a sort of dome around Granada.

The reason for the formation was to limit the firepower and advance of Zeon. While the lunar cities were designed to sustain heavy damage from incoming asteroids, and potential crashes of ships, there was only so much damage that could be taken and the crashing of hundreds of ships along with nukes had the potential to destroy Granada. With this in mind, Nikolaou hoped to force Zeon in a siege to buy time for the much hoped for Alliance intervention or for an opening to be created for the fleet to destroy the Zeon advance.

Fortunately for Zeon, Podarov had forseen the strategy beforehand and had planned Melies to take the formation into account.

When the Zeon fleet arrived onto the battlefield they arrived in three separate fleets. The fleets together would encircle Granada with each individual fleet being formed in the shape of a crescent to spread the ships apart. This was done for three reasons, the first was to cover as much ground as possible, the second to reinforce sections of the blockade that were under threat, the third was to bait the Federation into trying to create an opening, drawing them away from Granada.

As the Zeon fleet created their blockade, the Magellans and Salamis' of the Federation opened their megaparticle canons to destroy as many Zeon ships as possible before they could set up an adequate Minovsky defense. The Zeon ships would return megaparticle fire, though they would unfortunately not be able to return in equal kills for the already established megaparticle density surrounding Granada.

The exchange of Minovsky particles went on for nearly forty minutes as Zeon got into formation and the Federation maintained its grounds. Casualties at the beginning were minimal with Zeon taking on 26 ships destroyed and 37 with varying forms of damage in return for 11 Federation ships destroyed and 21 suffering damage.

When the Zeon blockade got into formation a game of chicken began between the two fleets with each side daring the other to move first. Megaparticle exchanges occured every couple of minutes with squads of Zaku and saberfish being sent into the no-man's land to hopefully create a breakthrough. In the no-man's land between the two fleets, the first and last great dogfight between Zeon and the Federation would occur. For the Federal Remnant they would learn a painful lesson on mobile suit warfare that was nearly on the same level of suffering as Uroboros and Pezun.

**FF-S3 Saberfish. Ryu Jose.**

Never again. If Ryu Jose somehow lived to see the end of this battle he would never again enter a goddamned sweeptstakes competition for the rest of his life. Anything that Ryu would gain would be from his own hands, not the luck and fate that lead him to being transported to the Cosmic Era.

In early June Ryu had entered into a sweepstakes competition that he had seen in a sports magazine that he was subscribed to where the winner would get a one week all expenses paid vacation to Granada. While Granada was no Hawaii, it was still a center of wealth and luxury as the rival to Von Braun and a week off from his duties in the Space Force to live in complete luxury would be a blessing to Ryu.

Ryu had entered the contest, though it was mainly out of boredom and wish fulfillment as dozens of scratch tickets had shown his lack of luck before. To his complete and utter surprise, Ryu had won the contest and would now be able to have a good time on the far side and hook up with some Lunarian babes.

He would forever curse the Space Force for placing the end of his tour in late September, for it was on the first week of October that Ryu decided to begin his vacation, which tore him to the Cosmic Era away from his friends and family.

Before Ryu had any time to properly mourn what he had lost, MP's had shown up to his hotel stating that by order of Han Nikolaou, that he was to be drafted into the Lunarian Fleet, a necessity due to the hundreds of pilots who didn't make the trip.

Ryu could have refused, with how the battle turned out he would only stay in prison for a couple of days then be free to do as he pleased, leading to a very different outcome for the Asian-Latino. However, Ryu couldn't find the heart within him to disobey orders. He had always enjoyed his time as a pilot within the Space Force and was planning on going career. With all of his social connections no longer existing, all Ryu had left to live for was the Space Force. If he died then maybe he could go to heaven and see his family later, if he lived then he would find some new purpose in life to try and move on from the Universal Century.

Plus, Ryu had always had a strong distaste for Zeon. So if he was going into battle, then at least he would be doing so protecting the Lunarians from the Fascist Zeeks.

This was what he was doing right now, flying with dozens of other Saberfish over the Lunarian plains and craters to do battle within Zeon. He was a part of four wings of Saberfish who had been chosen to create a hole in the enemy lines. They would do so with tactical nukes that were spread among a squad of Sabers. Ryu's job was to escort the nukes to the target and then return to the fleet. It was a decent plan, but there was one small problem.

"Duckb-...ron this is Duckbill Lea-...in on enemy formation...Zakus coming up left fl...formation Alpha Four." Said the voice of Duckbill leader, the commander of the squadron that Ryu was in. Unfortunately his voice was extremely disconnected with heavy static, Ryu could barely make out his statement despite the leader being only five kilometers ahead.

'Go to hell Minovsky.' Ryu thought angrily. The Ukranian's discovery of the particle had completely changed the face of space warfare and the Space Force had to spend hundreds of billions in new communications and radar equipment to try and compensate for the change in fighting. All Saberfish were supposed to have been updated to provide good communication with CAG and commander, but apparently the new models were either trash or Ryu's Saberfish hadn't been fitted right.

"Duckbill Leader this is Duckbill Five, can you please state your orders again?" Ryu asked, desperate for some confirmed information so that he wouldn't screw up. Looking at the Minovsky counter he saw that they were at 57% density, things were only going to get worse from here.

Before Ryu could get a reply, his visual sensors confirmed the arrival of thirty of Zeon's Zaku models. The incoming mobile suits forced the formation to try and spread out to dodge the incoming spread of bazooka rockets and machine gun shells.

"Break! Break! Break!" Ryu heard a feminine voice screaming in the intercom. Ryu performed a barrel roll and let loose a stream of flares to mask his position and throw off any potential incoming missiles.

Undertaking a gambit, Ryu then descended his Saberfish and glided across the Lunar surface, then swinging his Saberfish to head for the rear of the Zaku formation. Ryu's hope was that the Zakus would be too focused on the group of Saberfish above and he would escape by flying under them with his black and white starfighter blending in with the moon's regolith.

It seemed that there were a few other pilots who shared his line of thinking as Ryu found himself being surrounded by eight of his fellow comrades.

"Sir, what are your orders?" Asked a pilot near him with a presumably Slavic accident. Ryu wanted to say that he was no officer, however they were in the middle of the heat of battle and victory did always favor the bold who seized initiative.

"Target the most dense pocket of Zakus. We need to clump together before firing so that our missile barrage will be increased and we'll have higher chances of hitting. Once you pull the trigger pull away towards L2 and we'll regroup with the nuke party." Ryu said. Fortunately he received Rogers from all of his wingmates so his orders had gotten through with the Minovsky density.

The Saberfish dis as he told with the nine starfighters flying tightly in a rough diamond formation. Upon seeing five Zakus together, Ryu did his best to get a missile lock and told his wingmates to fire. Everyone complied and within ten seconds the unsuspecting Zakus were fired upon. Three were destroyed instantly in the wave with one being heavily injured and the fifth escaping.

Multiple cheers erupted on the comm with everyone feeling that they had received a kill. Almost every Saberfish did as Ryu told and broke off to get away from the battle, except for a lone cocky pilot who broke off in an attempt to claim more kills, only to be killed within seconds from a sniper Zaku.

Ryu tried his best to get a visual of the situation and did not like what he saw. All around the battlefield there were an increasing number of Saberfish hulls either floating into deep space or crashing into the lunar surface. Outside of the three Zakus that they had killed there were few other destroyed Zakus that were dotting the landscape. Ryu could notice a dense pocket of Saberfish struggling to escape, which he assumed was the nuke squad and their immediate protection.

Ryu ordered for a regrouping with the nuke squad, and his squadron would have done so, however a flash of lightning had entered his consciousness, forcing him to narrowly dodge an incoming round while one of his nearby wingmates was not so lucky and exploded. Ryu turned and saw the same survivor of the Zaku team he had fired upon, a yellow one, pursuing them with three others.

Knowing that they would be dead meat if they could not fire back, Ryu volunteered to act as bait, "All units, I'll try and redirect their fire to buy time for an escape. If one or two of you guys would like to join me then that would be great. The rest of you go with the nukes and make sure they reach their targets."

To his surprise he found two other pilots willing to make the ultimate sacrifice alongside him, the others darted out into deep space, making calls of well wishes and good luck before they sadly left their comrades to go for the nukes.

"Fire missiles so we can scatter them." Ryu ordered. He did so first with a firing of his missiles on the yellow one and the closest Zaku next to them after he did so he fired rounds from his 25 mm machine gun. None of the missiles hit with only a few of the machine rounds barely grazing the Zakus, but that was okay because they weren't meant to kill, just separate the Zakus.

The other pilots followed suit, with Ryu unaware that his awakening as a Newtype had directed them on how to do so with brief mental images of what he had planned. Just as Ryu had hope four, the four Zakus had scattered away.

Ryu focused his attention on the yellow one and his comrade. Feeling pretty good today about his ballsy stunts, Ryu decided to go for another one and instead of firing on the Zakus, he charged straight ahead with his Saberfish set on a straight collision course for the green one.

Ryu had observed the Minovsky counter and noticed the density rising to 63%. If he tried to fire from a distance then he would get nothing but misses. Therefore he needed to get close as possible so that the Minovsky particles could interfere as little as possible and he could get a clean shot.

To the sight of the Zakus, it looked that Ryu was suicidal and going in for a kamikaze. The two fired on him with the green one panicking and moving to escape Ryu's line of sight and get a better position to fire unmolested. This worked for Ryu who had to only dodge the accurate fire of the Yellow Zaku. Pulling off some of the best flying from his life, and being added by powerful new senses that alerted him to doge at specific points, Ryu got to his target. Coming in at a close 20 meters, Ryu fired a salvo of eight missiles, hitting their target dead on and creating another dead Zaku.

"Fuck Yeah!" Ryu whooped in glee. Unfortunately his celebration was short lived as the yellow Zaku had finally hit its mark, with a score of rounds hitting Ryu's left wing and tearing most of it apart.

"So this is how I go." Ryu said with a heavy air of sadness. While it was hypothetically still possible to survive with a broken wing, the Zaku would likely want to finish the job for its comrades, and with hardly any Saberfish nearby there was no garuntee that Ryu could be rescued to make a crash landing.

Realizing that these would be his last moments, Ryu resolved to at least take down one more Zeek with him.

Ryu spinned his machine rightward multiple times in an attempt to get the perfect position. Fortunately his adversary was none the wiser and kept moving forward in a straight line, which was fine for Ryu. With new instincts telling him when to move, Ryu at a precise moment pushed his thrusters to maximum acceleration and headed for a straight course to the Zaku.

It was not an easy endeavor and the off-balance of the Saberfish made the journey hell with Ryu growing increasingly nauseous. However through skill and a damn good amount of luck, Ryu followed through.

The Zaku fired its machine gun, punching numerous holes in the Saberfish but Ryu kept on going, his machine moving on pure willpower and fortune at this rate. When Ryu got close enough to the Zaku, he tilted ever so slightly to the left, with his Saberfish's remaining wing headed straight for the cockpit.

"For the Federation!" Ryu shouted in what he thoguht to be his last words. The wing struck true and hit the cockpit, cutting the enemy pilot in half. Unfortunately for Ryu, at the last second the pilot had switched to its heathawk, with the axe striking down on the nose of Ryu's Saberfish, just barely missing the cockpit.

With this strike and his wings gone, Ryu's saberfish was nothing more than a meteorite at this point. Using his last moments to roar at the battlefield defiantly, Ryu crashed into the lunar surface, blacking out upon contact.

**EFSF Brazzaville. Han Nikolaou.**

While he projected an image to the crew and the rest of his fleet as a calm and cool leader, inwardly Nikolaou was furious and growing more frustrated by the minute at the lack of success on the battlefield.

_'Where the hell are you Renee?'_ Nikolaou asked himself for what felt like the hundreth time. While communications with the female admiral had revealed a successful opening of relations with the Atlantic Federation, a nation composed of North America and the British Isles which appeared to be the dominant superpower of this era, she so far had great failure to convince them to intervene due to their fear of their rebelling colonies. The news was difficult for Nikolaou to swallow as even the sight of an approaching Atlantic Fleet could be enough to ward off Zeon and preserve the Federation's independence.

Fortunately for him the battle seemed to be going in one of the best case scenarios, though there had been great difficulty and setbacks as well. So far the Zeon fleet had been unable to penetrate Federal lines with Nikolaou keeping up a strong defense. Ship casualties so far were in the dozens with a majority coming from megaparticle fire, though for every ship lost it appeared that the Federation was able to either destroy or heavily damage one from Zeon.

With the stalemate continuing, the battle looked to be determined in the great dogfight between Saberfish and Zaku. Nikolaou had ordered for several nuclear sorties to be launched, and so far only a couple of nukes had successfully hit their targets with most being eliminated along with a majority of Saberfish, quickly eliminating most of Nikolaou's fighters with him soon to be forced to halt all offensive flights. Zeon had unleashed their own nukes, but for some reason Nikolaou couldn't fathom, they were using them very conservatively, only using them at the edges of the Federation fleet to push the ships in and prevent any advances, forcing the fleet to be even more densely concentrated then before.

Han found it rather stupid as nukes were supposed to be used in a blitz attack to decimate enemy lines, if the Zeon were handicapping himself then that was all right to him.

"Sir, Minovsky density is at 95% and we will soon reach full Minovsky density within ten minutes." Said one of the Brazzaville's operators. Nikolaou acknowledged the update and looked at the greater battlefield with a frown. Minovsky particles were one of the worst things to ever come out of Zeon as it turned back space warfare from the pinpoint long-range style that it was intended to into a rather close and personal battle reminiscent of the second World War.

_'At least here while we may not be able to fire upon them, they cannot fire upon us.'_ Nikolaou thought, happy that the stalemate would continue and that the Remnant's chance of survival would increase with each passing second.

What Nikolaou did not know was that the near total Minovsky density was what Zeon intended, and that by being stationary he was playing right into their hands. For the Admiral he would not live to regret it, as soon his life, and the greater battle would come to an end.

**MS-06C Zaku-II. Garma Zabi.**

When Garma had made up his revision to Melies, he did so with his strategy revolving around a single set of mind, "Keep the Federation boxed in." While his strategy would never work in deep space unless Garma had overwhelming numbers, the Remnant's decision to station themselves above Granada to protect the city had allowed Garma to present an alternative to Podarov's previous plan of going in guns blazing and overwhelming the Federation through brute force, to turn Minovsky particles against the Federation.

While Earth's scientific community along with the near defection of Trenov Minovsky brought to light the reality of Minovsky physics and their many potential uses to the Federation, they did not think as broadly on the subject as Zeon did. When finally acknowledging Minovsky physics, the Federation was only concerned with two aspects, replacing their fusion reactors with the more effecient Minovsky reactor to allow for greater power output with less consumption of Helium-3, and to create Megaparticle canons to add more firepower to the vast Federal Armada. While the potential for Minovsky particles as a communication disruption was acknowledged, no one besides a few innovators such as General Revil had thought of the full implications of such a technology. To the Federation, the vast distances of space would make a full radar and communications death impossible and as such they could still use big gun tactics and their starfighters.

Such a lack of total foresight was clearly shown here. While the Remnant fleet was indeed protected from megaparticle and nuclear attacks from the Zeon fleet, the Remnant still acted like their battleships and cruisers operated at peak capacity and that their starfighters would operate more or less the same despite the obvious reality that they were now crippled. The same could not be said for the Zaku whose performance now rose even further due to the reduction of threats with no automatic targeting systems to destroy them with ease.

This was how Garma foresaw the best plan to involve the least amount of casualties. Box in the Federation and once they were as blind as bats unleash the Zakus with no opposition to do as they please. Then with the enemy commanders dead, the Federation would surrender and cease to exist.

Garma desired this plan not only to conserve as many Zeon lives as possible, but out of a small desire to save the Federation rank and file. While he viewed the flag officers with disgust as leaders who were slaves to Earth that desired to continue the fight and oppress the Lunarians despite the Federation ceasing to exist, the common man and woman of the Federation were merely poor souls who had been weighed down by gravity and indoctrinated their entire lives to believe that Zeon was some great evil and that the Federation was a perfect democracy who could do no wrong.

These people didn't deserve to die because their leaders refused to accept reality. While Garma acknowledged that many of the enlisted and lower officers would have to die in his plan anyways, at least here the numbers would be far lesser than before and those who survived could start new lives in the Cosmic Era.

Thankfully many would due to the appearance of his plan working. With the high Minovsky density the AA fire of the Magellans and Salamis' could not even scratch them without either a lucky shot or grave error on the part of a Zaku pilot. With most of Saberfish having been eliminated in the dogfights in no man's land, even their pitiful resistance would not be present against the onslaught of Zabis.

Once Minovsky density reached near one hundred percent, Garma sortied with hundreds of other Zakus, Eric fighting alongside him with his personal team, charging head on to take out the leaders of the Federal Fleet.

Just as Garma has wished for, they had targeted the Magellans one by one. Garma's custom green and red Zaku was able to effortlessly tear into each Magellan that he had encountered, his each shot of his bazooka being a critical blow while Eric tore into the weak spot of the Magellans with his 120mm machine gun.

To Garma the experience was something similar to the Mariannas Turkey Shoot that he had read about in the history books, an enemy with decimated air power acting as little more than target practice for the victors to have their way with. At first Garma felt a rush of exhilaration, with each shoot being one of passion as he laid waste to the Federation and did his part to liberate the Lunarians.

Over time however, Garma felt this sense of gratification and ecstasy begin to slowly dissipate until it was gone completely, like the withdrawal from a particularly intense high. Garma had faith going into the battle that Zeon would achieve victory no matter the cost, with his first kill acting as confirmation for this belief. With little to no chances of his life being threatned and the numbers of Federal ships destroyed climbing, what was taking place did not seem like a battle to Garma any more, rather a form of extermination long after the threat had passed.

Thankfully for Garma, the death did not have to go on longer. Just as he had predicted, morale had dropped and soon the Federal guns had begun to stop firing. On his fifth ship that Garma had encountered, he had received a form of surrender from the Magellan's captain. Garma could hear a couple of more surrenders make their way through the heavily jammed radio, and through his Zaku's monoeye the flares of the ballistic rounds and purple and yellow flashes of each side's megaparticle canons gradually ceased to dart across the lunar landscape.

About twenty minutes into his sortie, Garma barely received a confirmation signal from Admiral Podarov that the battle was over. While there was more than likely a few isolated battles still raging as he could occasionally see a few lights flash in the distance, more than likely the near total of the remaining Federal fleet had surrendered. With a monumental victory of this kind, the rest of the Federal Remnant would be soon to follow. After the end of the Federation, the far side of the moon would be liberated and Zeon would be forever independent, tearing off the last shackles of the Universal Century and beginning their new life in the Cosmic Era.

Once the official surrender occurred, Garma and his squadron flew across the battlefield to check for any Federals who refused to surrender and give help to any Zeon who needed saving. The overall mood of the squad was heavily jubilant, with each member getting at least one kill and the prestige to say that they took part in the end of the Federation. If the _Great Degwin _suffered no damage, then it would be a perfect personal victory in Garma's book.

After a thorough check of the battlefield, Garma was about to head back to the _Great Degwin_, until his Zaku picked up a faint signal that was coming from the lunar surface.

**FF-S3 Saberfish. Ryu Jose.**

When Ryu awoke he felt like he had just had the worst hangover in his life, far worse than that one Mardi Gras celebration that he swore to never spoke of again. His body ached all over in great pain and soreness, his head felt like it had just been sucker punched by a steel fist, and his vision was blurry for several seconds.

Ryu had no idea if he was dead or alive. While many in the past had survived crash landings on the lunar surface, with the absolutely abysmal state of his Saberfish and the unlikelihood that either the Fleet or Zeon would devote resources to rescue him, he definitely should have been dead.

Ryu looked upwards and saw a figure towering over him.

"God?" Ryu asked in a tired slur.

He was met with a laugh, "I'm afraid not. I was able to postpone your meeting so you'll have to wait a while to reach the clouds, or whatever you believe." Said the man in response.

As Ryu's vision started to become clearer, he noticed that he was still in his cockpit. Although from looking around it seemed to be paractically the only thing he had of his Saberfish and for what its worth barely holding control panel had been smashed and most of the canopy had been ripped open. Cuts had been made along the metal of the cockpit that looked to be scars made from a wild beast. Regolith was scattered throughout the cockpit in the form of dust, all things considered, he was pretty damn lucky that his body wasn't impaled and he didn't bleed to death.

Ryu looked to his supposed savior and noticed two things. The first was that a portion of his visor had been patched with a few pieces of space tape, meaning his rescuer had not only saved his life by finding him, but prevented him from dying of asphyxiation. Another observation was that his rescuer was not wearing a Federal normal or pilot suit, rather a purple and black pilot suit warn by Zeon.

"So, we lost the battle?" Ryu asked with a tone of heavy defeat. Such a scenario had to be the case as there would be no reason for a Zeon pilot to remain behind to rescue him in their defeat. Also, unless this person was suicidal, insubordinate, or the biggest bleeding heart on this side of Luna they would not try to save Ryu in the middle of a battle.

"I'm afraid so, the battle ended a while ago and I was on my way back to my ship until I picked up your distress signal. It's quite a lucky thing actually, with this Minovsky density I should have easily missed it, but it seem's lucks on your side today." The Zeon said in mirth, hoping to cheer Ryu up.

Silence ran between the two for a while, with Ryu having no idea just what the hell to say to this man who had saved his life even though the two would have killed each other just a short while ago. "If it means anything, when your fleet surrendered a large majority of it was intact. A lot of your wingmates may have died but I'm sure there's some friends of yours that made it." He said, having no idea that Ryu was never meant to be a part of the far side fleet and didn't have any friends here.

"Why the hell did a Zeek like you save a Feddie like me? Aren't I the scum of the universe to you people, a man who wants to crush your soul in gravity?" Ryu asked with confusion and desperation. While the logical side of him knew that it was obscenely stupid to spit in the face of his savior, the current situation was just so damn odd and made no sense.

The Zeon lowered his helmet, Ryu's senses becoming clear enough to catch a glimpse of sadness in his eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I despise your government and everything it stood for. The Federation to me is nothing more than a sham democracy designed to be controlled by the elite through their oppression of Spacenoids. However, those who I have hatred towards no longer exist and I'll never get to see the Universal Century again. Unless you were part of the garrisons I highly doubt that you partook in the oppression of Spacenoids. Up to today you were simply a cog in the machine, a man who was indoctrinated to see us as demons for wanting to be free because it went against the wishes of the Earthborn elite. I don't hate you or hold you responsible, you couldn't have known better."

Ryu growled at the words, hating the man's condescending tone and hypocrisy that Ryu couldn't have possibly known better, that his values and heritage were built on lies and manipulation while his side was unquestionably right and just.

Ryu was not naive, he knew that the Federation was not perfect and that the Spacenoids had legitimate grievances against the ruling government. However, just because injustice was present it did not mean that it should be used as justification for authoritarianism and the desire to destroy everything that had been created in the Universal Century, the good and the bad.

Still, he had to count himself thankful that no matter the warped views of his savior, he had enough of a conscience to give Ryu mercy and not place him as responsible for whatever tyranny Zeon saw the Federation as responsible for, something that Ryu did not believe most of his comrades shared.

However, there is one thing that I want to know. Why is it, that after the Federation no longer existed and the Earth in this reality has no bearing to your own, when you were clearly outnumbered and outgunned with your only sovereignty being the rule of a people who wished to join us, did you still take up arms and fight?" The pilot asked. The tone of his question was not one of hate that Ryu expected, but confusion. With the reasons that he pointed out, Ryu could understand from an outsider's perspective how this looked to be a pointless battle.

"Your nation may view the past few days as a blessing, you are now free from the Federation and exist in a new universe where you can have a fresh start with your friends and family. Us on the other hand, we got pulled here against our will and away from our friends and family. With what's going on, we don't really have a reason to live, so it felt natural to just do our duty and serve the flag that's the only thing left of our identity. Not much to it." Ryu said in despair, the reality of his situation setting in more with the defeat of the Remnant not giving him anything else to look forward to.

The Zeon pilot looked towards him in sympathy, "You might not have a reason to live, but that doesn't excuse going into a pointless battle and taking lives when blood didn't have to be spilled. If you didn't have a reason, why didn't you just create your own and make this brave new world your home?"

Before Ryu could respond to the rather profound words, he noticed a shuttle gliding overhead, guessing that it landed near despite the lack of sound or visual.

"Well, it looks like your ride's here. I asked for our Komusai's to begin a general search of the area, so hopefully we'll find most of your remaining friends who are lost on the fields. For now you'll be a prisoner of war until we can get the rest of your fleet to surrender and Gihren can come up with some kind of solution for you people. I can't promise any specifics on your future living conditions, but we'll be mostly adhering to the Geneva Convention if that makes you comfortable."

The pilot motioned for Ryu to exit the cockpit with his hand tightly gripped on a strapped holster. While Ryu wanted to feel insulted, he knew several some people who would try to pull one even in this sort of situation, so some extra security showed that this Zeek had at least some brains, which Ryu could definitely respect.

Ryu climbed slowly out of the cockpit, his body still aching heavily despite the 1/6th gravity, which was most likely the reason that he could even move at all whereas he would probably have been dead if he crashed on Earth. Landing rather ungracefully on the Lunar surface, Ryu gently hopped to the nearby green shuttle, his savior/captor following from behind.

The journey to the shuttle was silent, with Ryu both not wanting to talk and unsure of what to say, with the pilot most likely feeling the same. When they he was about to enter the shuttle, Ryu spoke his peace.

"Thank you by the way, for saving me. You didn't have to save me, we were enemies just a short while ago, and yet you still did. I don't like your nation, and especially its leaders, but if there's good people like you there then it must not be so bad. Someday I hope I show someone the same kindness that you gave me." Ryu said earnestly.

"That means a lot. I'll try and rush the process so that your people can be free soon. I know that this seems like the end of the world for you, but instead of being depressed, try to look at this as an opportunity to start anew. You might find a new family that you would have never had the chance to meet back in UC. Good luck on your travels." The pilot replied.

"Thanks, and good luck with your independence I guess. By the way, my name's Ryu Jose."

"Garma Zabi." The now identified prince of Zeon replied, reaching his left hand out for a shake, with a flabbergasted Ryu responding in a kind out of automation. Completely shocked by the revelation, Ryu had no opportunity to continue the conversation and asked for more, with it being finished completely when a Zeon Marine pushed him inside of the Komusai with a submachine gun pointed at his back.

Once he was inside of the cockpit, Ryu finally had the opportunity to take off of his helmet, doing so with a heavy brief of relief and savoring the shuttle's recycled air, as compared to the failing system of his pilot suit it smelled heavenly.

After a short check up by a medic on the shuttle, with Ryu needing minimal first aid, he was directed to the passenger section where he was restrained inside of a seat with two other Federal pilots like him being held captive.

Ryu turned to the pilot seated at his right, greeting a blonde man about his age. "Hi, I'm Ryu Jose."

"Yazan Gable."

**A/N: And thus we have the last light of the Earth Federation be snuffed with a great Zeon victory with their liberation of Granada and soon the greater far side to follow. With Zeon's independence secured, they must now turn to ending their wars with ZAFT and the Alliance, with both sides now becoming aware of Zeon's existence. Just to be clear, with the surrender of the Granada Fleet the rest of the Federal Remnant will not take arms. Whether they will surrender outright however, will be shown in the next chapter when we come to how Renee's dealing with the Atlantic Federation and what the exact actions of the remaining city fleets are.**

**To some of you it might seem like the chapter was anti-climatic, and I understand if you feel that way. This chapter was never really meant to feature if Zeon would win, rather how they would win as the Federal Remnant needed a miracle or intervention from the Alliance to stand their ground, neither of which were coming. Originally I had intended for more battle scenes with Garma, but as I wrote the chapter I felt it would be awkward and too much of a repeat of Solomon and Pezun, so I had his combat limited since there would be no hard danger or opposition, sorry Garma fans, don't worry he'll get more chances to shine in the future.**

**What I am proud of and what was my favorite portion in a while was writing Ryu's POV in this scene, with him kicking ass as part of the Federation's last stand. That's right everyone, White Base's Best Boi is now part of the Cosmic Era. For the future I want to have a handful of Federation characters appear as part of the cast to show their viewpoint with this new world and how the Remnant, while defeated, will significantly contribute to coming events. For Ryu I'm going more along the lines of his Origin character as a seasoned pilot where here he got very unlucky and was transported to the Cosmic Era while on vacation. Going forward Ryu will basically be the grunt standin for the Federal Remnant while Renee is seen for the officers, showing how someone from Earth or a Loyalist Spacenoid will move forward in the Cosmic Era and react to Zeon's presence. Ryu will appear more in the future and I'll definitely be looking forward to his battles, especially since he's now a Newtype.**

**Also yes, the Violator was sent along for the ride. Rest assured Yazan is still an Oldtype, but that doesn't make him anymore dangerous. What Yazan did during the battle and what kind of state he's in will be revealed in the future.**

**Next chapter will act as a sort of conclusion to Talia and Renee's character arc for the First Contact War, and the end of the beginning with all of the Cosmic Era becoming aware of Zeon's existence. After that will be a reaction arc where each faction shares their first impressions. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	19. Shattered Veil

**April 3rd, 70 CE. 1200 Colonial Standard. Principality of Zeon. Third Person POV**

For the past two days the people of the Principality of Zeon had been on a constant state of edge. One moment they were zealously celebrating the much promised independence, the next they had all been knocked unconscious with most people not waking up for several hours. As it was in many extraordinary times of crisis, unrest rose with the spread of riots and looting along with occasional attacks by lone wolfs who wanted to use the Event to bring down the Zabi dynasty. Fortunately the coolness of the majority of the population and swift reaction of the military had kept order in place, but the low amount of deaths didn't stop the great unease that festered the population of Side 3.

For two days the population had been left in the dark with the state taking control of all television networks, radio stations, and the internet. No new information was allowed in with the news only reporting that everything was under control while all television stations only ran reruns with stern supervision from State Security. Those who had friends across the Sides, on Earth, or Luna were unable to contact them with a few who were incredibly persistent in their efforts being taken in the middle of the night. While most people placed their trust in the Zabi's and tried to go about their daily lives, deep inside there was a heavy discomfort that plagued them for each waking hour of the day. The national economy grinded to a halt with no work getting done in the private sector as all people could talk about was the Declaration of Independence, the communications blackout, and the event. Even the most diehard Nationalists had to question just what the Zabis were doing at this point.

During this time of crisis, the most confusing aspect was the sudden appearance of tens of millions of Zeon citizens who were outside of Side 3 during the time of independence. Each teleported person told a similar tale, of how they were watching the Declaration or performing some other activity, and then one moment while everything was perfectly normal, the next they found themselves in their homes surrounded by their families. While many were overjoyed to be reunited with their loved ones during this strange time, the fact that they had teleported across the Earth sphere gave cause for concern. Greater questions arose on why some people did not manage to come home instantly through this miracle, just why were they left behind while others were seemingly brought to Side 3 through divine intervention.

Had the situation gone one for longer then the unrest would have reached a breaking point and not even the Zabi's infamous cult of personality could save them. Fortunately on noon of "October 3rd", the people received their answer in the form of a state broadcast by Degwin Sodo Zabi with the following hour seeing the news flood the citizens with alerts that they needed to watch what their Sovereign would say.

Like many authoritarian regimes that came before, Zeon maintained a popular mandate through the creation of a cult of personality that portrayed them as the saviors of Side 3 and the only people capable of leading them to independence and prosperity. This cult was helped by the media, while on paper being free and in the hands of private citizens, falling into the pocket of the Zabi's with any who dared oppose the Zabi's being either alienated out of the industry, or if they were too persistent or dangerous, silenced. When it came to communicating with the people however, the Zabi's did not rely on the news, rather they acted outside of it through Gihren's propaganda network where he and the other Zabi's would directly approach the people, often times through thunderous rallies or inspiring films that motivated them to action. In this manner no one was technically forced to show their patriotism and loyalty to Zeon, rather being a patriot became a social requirement with participation in the Zabi machine being seen as an act of honor with service being its own reward. For Degwin to mandate that the people watch a news broadcast by him, the situation must have been incredibly grave.

Those who thought such sentiments would be proven correct as most of Side 3 tuned in to Degwin's speech. The footage showed Degwin sitting behind his desk, his face sporting an intensely grave focus that gave off a somber and serious air that went beyond Degwin's usual lack of emotion. For most of Zeon, the speech would be an affair that they would remember with every clear detail for the rest of their lives. From there a popular question would be, "Where were you when we learned of the Cosmic Era?"

"My fellow sons and daughters of Zeon, I come before you today with our nation in its darkest and most challenging our with the Principality finding itself in bizzare circumstances that before the Declaration could only be though of as fiction. For the past few days we have kept quiet on just what exactly happened during the Declaration and what the state of the Earth sphere was in the aftermath. I apologize for this intense manner of censorship as you all deserve the right to know the truth, however, it was a necessary evil in order to make sure that our nation could be united and prepared for the extraordinary circumstances we now find ourselves in, considering the events of the last few days, my decision to censor the communications network has been more than justified.

What I am about to present to you at this moment is an impossible tale that seems nothing more than fantasy, however I assure you that what I am about to say is the complete and total truth. Two days ago during the Declaration, through an unknown phenomena that broke all known laws of physics, the Principality of Zeon in its entirety, the far side of the moon, our asteroid outposts and fleets, along with tens of millions of citizens who were flung to Side 3 from the rest of the Earth sphere, were transported across space and time to an alternate timeline. What seems to be nothing more than science fiction is now reality as we find ourselves in a solar system based on a very different history. In short, we are no longer a part of the Universal Century, the solar system as we know no longer exists.

What Zeon now finds herself in is a timeline called the Cosmic Era. From what information we have obtained, due to a divergence in the late 20th century there was no Third World War with the Cold War ending peacefully in an American victory with the reformation of the Soviet Union into a liberalized Union of Sovereign States and the breakup of the Warsaw Pact with the fall of Communism everywhere outside of a few exceptions such as China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Cambodia. At first it seemed that in the absence of nuclear war this new world would be a unipolar one led by the United States, but through multiple factors that we are still struggling to understand, the world became multipolar and through an event known as the Reconstruction War in their year 2050, a new world order was established with the creation of a dozen superstates that split the Earth between them, a geopolitical scene that was created through multiple intense regional wars and a low scale usage of nuclear weaponry.

After the creation of their new calendar called the Cosmic Era in 2053, with the current date of this new solar system being April 3rd of Cosmic Era 70, or April 3rd 2113, history changed dramatically with humanity becoming incredibly alien to our history. For starters, the world never unified into a one world government akin to the Earth Federation with the world remaining divided into a dozen nations. Nuclear fusion was never discovered and as such human settlement has never gone into the Jovian sphere with the world being reliant on nuclear fission. Most of mankind remains on Earth with only 2% of the human population living in space or beyond the Earth sphere, with half of these migrants being volunteers rather than forced out. The starkest change in the Cosmic Era was the creation of genetic augmentations called Coordination, allowing people to manipulate the genes of an embryo to turn them into superhumans with unparalleled genius and super strength. These people have been termed as Coordinators.

Most of the Cosmic Era's history has seen intense social division over the status of Coordinators with some nations embracing them while others have persecuted them. The world's three greatest superpowers which are the successor states of the United States, Soviet Union, and China; have decided to force the majority of their Coordinator populations to migrate to colonies referred to as PLANTs, a history not so different from ours. A few months before our arrival, a crisis erupted over the PLANT's status of self-rule with war then breaking out after a conference by the UN, which still exists in this timeline, was dirty bombed with the PLANT delegation being conspicuously absent. While we have no idea who is truly responsible for the incident, the sponsor nations of the PLANTs have taken this as their responsibility and thus declared war with PLANT then declaring independence.

So far the war between PLANT and the organization of sponsor nations which have coined themselves as the Earth Alliance has been short but deadly. In the first week the Alliance launched a nuclear attack which destroyed one of PLANT's colonies. In retribution, hours after we arrived to this new timeline, PLANT launched a crippling attack on Earth which has seen most of the planet's energy grid be wiped out. As of this moment a majority of the planet is still without power according to satellite reports from the Space Force.

When we found ourselves in this new world, attempts were made to establish diplomatic relations with us successfully reaching out to two nations, the Republic of East Asia who is the successor state of China, and Orb, a nation which is an archipelago of artificial islands in the Southern Pacific. Unfortunately, such a tide of good fortune was not meant to be as yesterday our forward bases of Solomon and Pezun were attacked without warning or reason by PLANT and East Asia, the former having never attempted to contact us and the latter betraying the establishment of peaceful relations after first contact. We have no understanding of why they have attacked, but rest assured our great Space Force has seen to the obliteration of both of their fleets and as of now we are confident that Zeon can wipe out the military forces of this Earth sphere combined.

No matter how great these victories are, the fact remains that a tragedy has taken place with tens of thousands of Zeon servicemen and women paying the ultimate sacrifice. Further at this exact moment, hundreds of ships are launching to the far side of the moon to free the lunar cities from the tyrannical grip of the Earth Federation's fleet who have refused to recognize the death of their nation and have sought to continue their oppression of our Lunarian brothers and sisters. There are likely a number of you watching who have lost a loved one in these battles, and to you I give my deepest condolences. We are working hard to identify who has been lost with ongoing search and rescue missions for those who remain adrift in space or to retrieve corpses for a proper funeral. We will be releasing a list of all those who we have confirmed to be dead and for the families of those who have died I promise a highly generous gratuity payment along with the creation of a future state funeral to honor all those who have died in service of defending our independence from the aggression of the Federation or these new powers.

My fellow sons and daughters of Zeon, I swear to you on this day that their deaths shall be avenged. From this day forward we are now and forever free from gravity's tyranny with the insidious Federation no longer around to bend us to their will, the Principality will not let its independence be destroyed by the wanton aggression of the superstates of this timeline, and we will strike down all those who dare to deny our right to exist. With our titanic victories, diplomatic envoys have been sent to PLANT and East Asia to demand an armistice and for the beginnings of a negotiation to end this fruitless war. If they agree, then we shall have victory on our terms. If they choose to continue their senseless bloodshed then we will unleash the raw power and righteous fury of our military until they are no longer in a position to wage war.

The coming days shall be a difficult trial for Zeon but the rewards shall be great upon victory. None of us asked to leave the Universal Century, to enter this strange new world where most of humanity remains on Earth and a rise of supermen has occurred, now that we are here however, we shall establish our rightful place among the solar system and continue to fulfill the will of Zeon Zum Deikun, to show the Spacenoids of this era the enlightenment of Contolism so that they may all free their souls from gravity and become fellow Newtypes.

My people, I humbly call upon you in this time of crisis, to rise up and stand defiantly against the Cosmic Era so that we may create our new home. We shall endure, we shall prevail, Sieg Zeon.

**April 4th, 70 CE. 0100 Colonial Standard. Luna. AFS Colin Powell. Malcolm Carlson POV.**

Inside of the conference room of the Colin Powell, Admiral Malcolm Carlson sat alone with a small bottle of whiskey, attempting to explain to his colleagues and superiors of the Atlantic Federation Space Force just what the heck was happening and why they may have just made genuine first contact with a nation from an alternate dimension. While consuming alcohol in the middle of giving a report to his superiors was subject for severe discipline, Malcolm didn't give a damn. In the past few days the homeland had suffered a complete loss of power with millions dying, potentially including his home family, communication with the President was shaky at the best of times, thus leaving the Space Force on their own, and one of their allies may have unjustly attacked on a nation of hundreds of space colonies who had fusion nukes and mobile suits.

In other words, the whole world was going to hell and if Malcolm wanted to drink then he was going to goddamned drink!

_'What the hell did we do to deserve this, it was all so simple just a week ago.'_ Malcolm groaned mentally. While the suits in Washington were doing a crappy job running the war as they had been prone to do since Korea, the war for the most part was contained to L5 and an inherent Alliance victory with unconditional surrender from Aprilius likely by Christmas. Then out of nowhere the PLANTs had the power to manipulate fission like a lightswitch and hundreds of colonies along with advanced fleets were popping out of nowhere as if God had introduced some new toys to the Aliens showed up tommorrow, then Malcolm would not be surprised.

"For the last time Admiral, if the Coordinators have the ability to pop up thousands of new ships, mobile suits, and nukes like it was magic, why the hell are they engaging in all of this secrecy when they can just wipe us out at ease? Why is this Renee Harper attempting to talk with us to prove her story when she can just wipe us out with her GINN's and nuke Endiyomon as she would clearly have the superior technology and service quality if it's ZAFT. Why hasn't ZAFT launched more attacks with those Oceanian and African bastards? Why are the mass drivers still intact? What the hell was that battle at L5 when none of our forces are present? Why the hell aren't we signing an unconditional surrender if this is all the work of those Coordinators?!" Malcolm barked at his colleague Admiral Lee Redford who was the garrison commander of the Endymion base while Malcolm handled operational affairs for the sortie of the 3rd Fleet.

From the day that he had been posted at Endymion Malcolm just could not stand Lee. While he was competent at as a flag officer that there was nothing for Malcolm to take to the Pentagon up to this point, there was just something about the man that was offputting. There were several factors about him that made Lee unlikable such as his constant attempts to micromanage the human resources of the base, his sporadic inspections of the base to try and regulate every small detail, and his rather intensely personal relationship with the supply corps among with frequent sightings of national politicians. While the man radiated unease, he just became downright unbearable whenever someone brought up the topic of Coordinators, sending Lee into raging rants and off the wall conspiracy theories. While Lee heavily disliked Coordinators, he didn't do anything about them so long as he didn't have to live with them and they tended to their own affairs in the PLANTs. Lee on the other hand, was all but a confirmed Blue Cosmos member at this point, the strangest thing about it was how strongly he denied his ties to the organization each time someone said he was linked to them. It was not out of shame or disgust though, rather an attempt to keep professional distance, or perhaps deniability.

"Who knows just what the hell the Patchworkers think. Their brains are far beyond our comprehension, this is all just part of some master plan to completely destroy us and leave no chance for retaliation. East Asia is practically dead at this point, and we'll be next if you just sit there and gawk at them." Lee argued. Malcolm just rolled his eyes and scoffed in disgust, not giving the pretense of civility anymore.

"Once again I must state, that if they have the resources to pull off the largest military masquerade in history, one that makes Fortitude look like the a bright red sign, then they would have won the war already and just enforce whatever they want on us.. Either the Coordinators are so smart and all powerful that they can fuck with reality, or they are so insanely stupid that they try to play theater with us while our ships are walking coffins. Why still stick with the story of a group of people from a different dimension if that supposedly failed with East Asia? And why are they making a new fleet that is impossible to hold mobile suits along with crappy spaceborn versions of aerial fighters. What. Is. The. Point?!" Malcolm shouted.

"Thank you Malcolm, I think you've made your point." Said Admiral Terrence Howard, the head of the 4th Fleet who was in charge of the defense of the L1 colonies with him recently having to abandon his charge to hunker down in the Lunar bases with the rest of the ships to make a final stand. "I could maybe put up with the magic colonies, the stealth fleets, and the masquerade, but the confirmation of nuclear explosions in L5 along with a lack of committing this titanic resources to strike at the homeland is damning enough evidence. The only excuse you could come up with is that some civil war is breaking out, but what little factionalism the CIA has presented us with has never infected the colonies at large and there would be no reason to shoot at each other after they deployed the N-Jammers. If they were so disgusted with the act, they would have fought each other before the operation began, not after and when total victory is within their grasp." Terrence said, with Malcolm breathing a sigh of relief at logic winning the day.

"But-"Lee began, only to be cut off by Pedro Sanchez, the Admiral in charge of the 2nd Fleet at Tycho Crater.

"Look, while I admit that with everything that's happened in the past couple of days that there's still a decent chance that this could be ZAFT's work, Malcolm's arguments debunk most support for this being a ZAFT masquerade, and for now I'd like to believe that there's still some semblance of normality left in reality for us to approach these situations with logic and our sanity intact. So for now can we just approach the 'Earth Federation' fleet as legitimate until otherwise proven?" Pedro asked, with a majority of agreement on the conference call, causing Lee to painfully retreat and concede to Malcolm's logic.

"Fine, so if we except that this "Earth Federation" exists, then what are we supposed to do about them?" Lee asked, with the question being directed towards Malcolm in a snear.

Ignoring the hostility, Malcolm gave his thoughts on what he had decided upon receiving the information, "From what I've seen so far in the information data that they sent us along with the words of this Rear Admiral Harper, the entity that we are dealing with is not the main composition of forces from another timeline, it is this Principality of Zeon, with the Principality being in a De Facto rebellion against the Federation, who is just limited to their lunar cities since the rest of their territory remained behind. If we assume blindly that the leaders of this Zeon have complete support from their populace and the Federation for the far side lunar cities, they outnumber their former masters 20 to 1. Based on the numbers we picked up from L4 and L5, we can assume that this Zeon contains 4,000-10,000 ships in a rough estimate, a far greater number than what we knew of ZAFT, with _fusion_ nukes and mobile suits. Maybe if we were at peacetime, Earth was unmolested, and we had the backing of our allies then we could take them. But with our fleets being isolated from the others, the East Asians receiving a major ass whooping, and no near future support from Earth, going up against Zeon is suicide, which is something that we will be doing if we support the Federation.

"Won't Zeon just maintain their independence without the Earth Federation present? Their territorial claims are solely focused on Lagrange 2 and the far side cities were directly ruled by Earth, not them. So how about we intervene and extend the Earth Federation a hand of friendship, but make no overt military promises and mainly try to hold them from attacking Zeon. We force them to see reality and formally grant Zeon De Jure Independence, which will bring peace between the two and from there we'll be allied with a nation that has nuclear fusion technology. I'm sure we'll have to give them a crap ton of concessions, maybe even cede the entire far side to them, but that's Washington's job and with how ZAFT is now dominant, Congress would most likely sell themselves if it meant getting the fusion reactors and nukes." Offered Michael Ok, the Marine Lieutenant General in charge of the Lunar forces.

"Are we sure that this Zeon will be okay with just independence? If we acknowledge that those stealth fleets at L4 and L5 are Zeon's, then that meant that right before declaring independence, they sent forces to enemy Lagrange Points with absolutely no presence of their own or any legitimate claim to the territory. To me that seems like a war of naked conquest." Said Fleet Admiral Maxwell Carter, the ever serious and monotone Chief of Staff for the Lunar forces.

"Well, America did attempt to bring Quebec into the nation during the Revolutionary War. Perhaps they wanted to cause the other colonies to revolt in solidarity?" Pedro suggested.

"That only reinforces the argument, that action was done as an offensive strategy to push Great Britain out of North America completely. If Zeon sent forces to L4 and L5, tens of thousands of kilometres away from their vulnerable nation with no inherent resources besides manpower to procure, then they wanted to either decapitate the Federation or steal the colonies to increase their domain." Maxwell said.

"But that was when they were fighting Earth. Surely their sudden demographic superiority means that they would no longer have a need to attempt such a strategy?" Pedro once again suggested.

"If it were just colonies then perhaps your right, but those Lunar cities are industrial strongholds that are now surrounded by an untapped vein of mineral resources due to our suit's until now asinine policy of keeping the far side as neutral ground. Unless they have a large and stable connection to the Belt, then they'll be left to dry on resources and will want to secure the moon to increase their solarpolitical power. If we concentrate our fleets inside of our bases we could keep our cities, if we send even a fraction of our forces to defend the Earth Federation, then we're dead meat. We can't gamble for the sake of people from another reality while our nation is in the midst of collapse." Maxwell argued, with his bringing up of the current situation on Earth dashing any rising optimism of an alliance with the new Federation.

"But sir, you can't deny that the addition of physical tech for nuclear fusion would give us a fighting chance of continuing the war. If we don't grab our hands onto their reactors and nukes, and maybe their mobile suit tech, then we'll have to sue for peace, even unconditionally at the end of the month." Malcolm said.

When Malcolm brought about the possibility of surrender, he was given several dirty looks by those present within the call. By far the most chilling was Carter's who started at him coldly with his face bearing no emotion, but his eyes filled with silent rage as if he had just found Malcolm screwing with his wife. Thanks to the alcohol Malcolm didn't flinch, just barely though.

"I am well aware of how critical their weaponry could aid us in our war of survival against the Coordinators. But I will not have this nation be wiped out by Naturals from another dimension in place of Coordinators. Defeat is not an option, but I will rather go down fighting than through suicide. For now I suggest we try to stall until we get a clearer picture of the situation then the sole word of this Admiral. In particular we should reach out to this Zeon and instead ally with them, after all, they were able to defeat ZAFT, even with their superweapons."Maxwell said.

"Why would they ally with us? We are allied with East Asia and they attacked them without cause, therefore making us their enemies." Lee argued.

"No, we are not at war with Zeon, East Asia is. Considering we aren't having any fleet sent our way or angry demands for surrender, for now we can assume that they do not view us as an enemy despite our association. If necessary we should try to coordinate with Eurasia and South Africa to throw East Asia under the bus as a sacrifice to appease the Zeon, let them have East Asia's bases and colonies in exchange for peace. If we must we should aid them in their war against the Federation, perhaps we can keep our visitors here as hostages and give them to Zeon as a silver platter."

"So that's it, we're just going to stab those Earth Federation people in the back for trying to play nice and exchange in diplomacy with us? I didn't realize we were the 19th century Army sir." Malcolm grumbled.

"I didn't say that was our sole option, I'm just saying that we must do whatever it takes to make peace or ally with Zeon. If we have to shed blood against the Earth Federation to gain access to fusion nukes and mobile suits to destroy ZAFT, then it's a necessary evil. For now let's just play nice and get the Federation on our side until Zeon indicates that such an action will be one of war against them, I would much prefer the Federation as their small size and lack of resources would make us the senior partner in the relationship. Besides, as children of Earth who are technically in the midst of a rebellion from their colonies, I'm sure that they'll see the righteousness of our crusade against PLANT."

For the next eighty minutes they debated on the finite details of their rough draft of a strategy to deal in gunboat diplomacy with both the Earth Federation and Zeon. Once a plan was realized they sent it to Earth so that it could be seen by the President for approval. In the meantime they would play nice with the Federation fleet, playing a good host and drawing out talks while laying the groundwork for any potential treaties. This would allow the Space Force to act with support from the President instead of becoming mavericks like the East Asians seemed to be doing, it would give them time to research more of the Universal Century's history and thus change their strategy with any new information that would dramatically alter their plans, and most importantly it would allow them to watch on the current struggle between Zeon and the Federation, taking decisive action to appease the winner while not investing themselves too much on either side to prevent any possible alliance.

What Malcolm Carlson did not know at the time was how much his actions in the following days regarding the Atlantic Federation, and by extension the Earth Alliance's initial relationship between Zeon and the Federation would chart the course of the war between the Alliance and ZAFT.

**April 4th, 70 CE. 1200 Colonial Standard. Sol System. Third Person POV**

Across the solar system a message was being broadcast in all known forms of long range telecommunication. While it would take a couple hours for it to reach the Mars sphere, the nations of the Earth sphere received it near instantaneously at Noon Greenwich time of April 4th. While the message was not immediately noticed by a majority of the Earth sphere's population, by the end of the day it would be seen by billions of humans thanks to its heavy spread by the governments of the world and hundreds of news agencies.

The message when played presented an elderly obese man who was seated regally behind a very ornate wooden desk. The appearance of a large red, white, and black flag behind the man and his wearing of a ostentatious black and maroon uniform indicated that the man was of some high rank. While at first glance one would think that the man was a character from some cliche science fiction work, the serious and demanding aura that he presented gave off that of a powerful statesman.

After a second of silence, the man spoke.

"Greetings to the citizens of the Cosmic Era. I am Degwin Sodo Zabi, the Sovereign of the Principality of Zeon. To those watching this broadcast, these words may seem nothing more than gibberish. Throughout this video I shall explain the meaning of these words, how I and my people came to be in the Cosmic Era, the crimes inflicted upon us by the native nations of this timeline, and our demands for the near future.

To clarify my statement, I am the ruling monarch of the Principality of Zeon, a nation-state composed of over three hundred O'Neil cylinder colonies in Lagrange 2 with a combined population of 2.3 billion humans. To those who are watching, such a statement must surely seem false as no nation of the Cosmic Era has colonized Lagrange 2 and it would be impossible for any state to transport 2 billion people without being driven to bankruptcy. That is because my nation is not the product of any of the Cosmic Era's superstates like the PLANTs, rather we are a nation that comes from another timeline, dimension, parallel universe, etc. We come from a history where humanity was united into a single world government called the Earth Federation, with the Federation's main policy being the exile of a majority of humanity to space so that they could oppress the colonists of space to work for the benefits of the Earth elite. Alongside my broadcast shall be transmitted a history of the Universal Century, the timeline from which we hail, along with satellite imagery that proves our physical existence. If anyone still refuses to believe my words after this message, then come to Lagrange 2 and see for yourselves.

I do not know how or why my nation was transported in its entirety to the Cosmic Era, an act that defies all known laws of science and borders on divine nature. No matter the reason, we are here to stay indefinitely and thus are your new neighbors on the far side of the moon. In order to receive an understanding of what I am referring to, I shall present a brief history of my nation.

So far we have not identified at which specific point our timelines have diverged, but by far the biggest difference was an outbreak of the Third World War in our timeline in 1991 when Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev was replaced in a coup by the Soviet Army who then proceeded to invade the recently liberated Warsaw Pact, an act which pushed NATO to war against the Soviet Union and later other communist states such as China, Cuba, and North Korea. The war went on for four long years until May 1st of 1995 when the United States launched a large strategic nuclear assault on the Soviet Union and China in retaliation for the launching of their nuclear arsenals as a last ditch effort to stop NATO's liberation of their lands. The main reason our Earth was not a nuclear apocalyptic wasteland was due to NATO's usage of the Strategic Defense Initiative, a program which in our timeline not only came into reality, but was far more advanced in technology and scope than the SDI of your world.

The Third World War brought about the deaths of 200 million people and massive environmental destruction that was never before seen. In the aftermath of this catastrophe came calls for global unification in order to prevent the spread of evils such as Nazism and Communism from daring to arise in power and bring the world to the brink of ruin. In 1999 the United Nations was reformed into the Earth Federation, an organization with far greater powers and enforcement within its member-states. Due to multiple political and social developments, the Earth Federation was then reformed into a proper one world state in 2045, with the next year marking the conversion of the calendar from Anno Domini to the Universal Century. The last day that Zeon was in its original timeline it was October 1st 0078, in other words October 1st, 2113.

While the Federation was founded on noble ideals, overtime it became a corrupt government that inflicted countless atrocities upon the Earth in the name of world peace. Cultures and political ideologies which were deemed to be subversive to Western Liberalism were either heavily repressed or wiped out. Nations which had opposed the Federation, mainly in the Middle East and Africa, were conquered through brutal force and kept in a state of cyclical poverty while the Federation exploited their resources for the advancement of their economy. By far the worst crime of the Federation was the forced exile of nine billion of its people into space in the name of saving the environment. While some went willingly into space, most were forcibly dragged out of their homes by the Federal Army and forced to leave their ancestral homelands against their will to inhabit the colonies of the Earth sphere with no training, no education, no experience in living in a multi-cultural society, and little wealth besides their meager savings and the clothes on their backs.

The first decades of the colonies were harsh and unforgiving, but overtime we Spacenoids as we refer to ourselves adapted and made new homes in space. Some colonies were able to reach the living standards of Earth while the colonies as a whole were quickly becoming the majority of the world's economy. As we shed our heritage on Earth and increasingly identified the colonies we had been exiled to as home, greater demands for self-rule and independence were increased. Despite the fact that we were the majority of humanity, we were denied the right to vote in the Federation with every attempt to clamor for greater self-rule or equality with Earth met with harsh force. Over time many leaders for Spacenoid independence emerged, the greatest of them was Zeon Zum Deikun, my old friend and the revolutionary for which our nation was named after.

Unlike the Earthnoid Elite who clinged to the surface, Deikun foresaw that humanity's true future was in space and that in order for the Earth to heal and for our species to evolve, that all people must migrate to space where we shall take control of our destiny and ascend to a higher cultural plane. For nearly three decades Deikun worked peacefully in the name of Spacenoid independence, until his untimely demise nearly a decade ago, an act that was surely brought about by the Earth Federation to silence him and end the movement of Spacenoid independence once and for all. In the aftermath of my friend's demise, I rose as his successor as Prime Minister, and by the will of the people created the Principality of Zeon with my family at its head so that Deikun's will could be manintained and that one day the Spacenoids would rise up and tear off the shackles of Earth's gravity.

For the past decade our nation has been united in this goal with the Principality dedicated to greater self-sufficiency and fostering a sense of brotherhood among our fellow Spacenoid nations. On October 1st, or three days ago, we declared independence from the Federation. Shortly after I signed our nation's declaration, we were brought by some unknown phenomena to the Cosmic Era, an event where in the aftermath we were met with a severe unwelcome.

Hours after we were transported to the Cosmic Era, ZAFT launched an attack on Earth which eliminated a majority of the planet's energy production. Due to the chaos of this unprecedented calamity, both ZAFT and the Alliance were presumably met with great confusion at our presence. I hypothesize that due to the reality-breaking nature of ZAFT's attack on Earth, they believed that our colonies were creations of the other government. As such on April 2nd, our asteroid bases at Lagrnages 4 and 5 were attacked by East Asia and ZAFT respectively.

Through our usage of both mobile suits and nuclear fusion weaponry, we were able to defeat the East Asian and ZAFT fleets with tens of thousands of people from both sides currently our prisoners. Rest assured we are treating the imprisoned as prescribed by the ancient Geneva convention. At this moment Zeon is in a state of De Facto war with both PLANT and East Asia and hours ago I have secured a declaration of war from the Diet, our nation's legislative branch, against both nations. However, since information from both fleets has revealed that these attacks were done due to ignorance rather than pure aggression, I call for peace from both nations so that we may bring an end to this senseless fighting and that no more lives shall be lost.

For the next week from this broadcast, I am ordering a cease fire on all forces of the Principality on combat operations against PLANT and East Asia. During that time I request that both nations send representatives to engage in talks for ending the war. As of this moment we have established strong first relations with Orb and thus if either PLANT or East Asia feel inclined they may wish to use them as a mediator. What I wish to seek from the aggressors is treaties that recognize Zeon's sovereignty, reparations for our citizens who have died in these battles, and a settlement over the L4 Cluster with justice over its oppression from East Asia. If either side attacks Zeon before then then the cease fire shall be called off and we shall retaliate with prejudice. If neither side agrees to engage in diplomacy by the deadline then we shall resume the war until such a time that the offending parties sue for peace and recognize our existence.

For the nations of the world who have not engaged in war against us, including the other member-states of the Earth Alliance, Zeon extends a hand of friendship and hopes to engage in equal diplomacy and trade. In regards to the ongoing war between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT, the Principality shall at this current time remain neutral, though once peace has been reached with East Asia and ZAFT we would like to present ourselves as mediators to handle any peace treaty between PLANT and the Alliance.

I do not know why we have been transported here, but what I do know is that for the foreseeable future we are here to stay. After decades of suffering under the oppression of the Federation, the Principality of Zeon shall for now and forever more be an independent state and each and every last one of us stand united in our defense of our nation's sovereignty. To all nations who wish to reach out to us in peace we shall return the sentiment and begin an era of coexistence and fruitful relations. To those who wish to deny us our right to self-rule, they shall be met with a righteous fury that will not acquiesce until our foes are in no position to threaten our freedom.

Goodbye for now citizen of the Cosmic Era, may we meet again in peace."

**A/N: Hello everyone, Kaiser Chris here with another chapter of Gihren's Glory. In this chapter the veil of confusion and miscommunication is lifted with all of Zeon now being aware of the Cosmic Era and vice versa. From this point on Zeon is now an established player in the Earth sphere and with the chaos and misinformation being lifted, now everyone is going to soak in just what kind of alternate universe they're dealing with and where they'll go from here.**

**On the Degwin sections, I know that it's just exposition dumps of knowledge that SEED and UC fans should clearly know, but I wanted to show just how Degwin presented the revelation to the people of Zeon and how most of the Cosmic Era came to be aware of Zeon. For those who are suspicious of Degwin's exact wording, particularly the biased account of UC history and why he told Zeon that the attack was unjustified while to the rest of the Earth sphere he said it was a case of mistaken identity, it's all a case of propaganda and Degwin's manipulation of the homefront and the Cosmic Era to present Zeon in the best situation possible. For Zeon he wanted to present the history of the Cosmic Era as an era of chaos and backwards thinking where humanity is mostly held back by gravity, while with the attacks he wanted to show both sides of the war as being savages for attacking Zeon without cause (which they were at fault for). This produces a rally around the flag effect that makes all of Zeon united around the Zabis and gives Degwin and his family free reign to engage with ZAFT and the Alliance however they like. For his speech to the Cosmic Era, he wanted to present Zeon as being a just nation who was unfairly oppressed by Earth and just obtained their independence, only for them to get thrown across space and time against their will and suddenly attacked by both parties of the ongoing war without the conduction of basic intelligence. This presents Zeon as a state that while powerful and ready to stand for their independence, a victim who the solar system should sympathize with and favor over the aggressors, putting Zeon in the moral right. We'll see more manipulation from Zeon towards all of the Cosmic Era parties in the future and the Zabi's endgame plan will be revealed soon.**

**In the middle section we got a small glimpse into Atlantic Federation command and how they're dealing with Renee's fleet. By that point they didn't mistake it for a ZAFT fleet as while the power of the N-Jammers still has them in heavy fear and paranoia, too many illogical events have happened for them to regard this as completely ZAFT's doing, especially when Renee's fleet does not have mobile suits. For now they'll play nice with the Federal Remnant, but if need be they'll turn on them to appease Zeon. At this point they're desperate and will do whatever it takes to continue the fight with ZAFT and prevent defeat. Considering they still fought on for a year when their position was far worse than the Federation Post-British, it shows that the Alliance will pull at any straws present to continue the war.**

**Also I know that I promised Talia to be present, but in the planning for the chapter I couldn't find any room to fit her organically, so her next appearence as a prisoner and her tour of Side 3 will show up later in the upcoming Reaction Arc, as either a standalone chapter or a portion of a greater chapter alongside the East Asian prisoners and the Federal Remnant.**

**Next chapter, which will be posted soon, will cover the colony of Mendel as Zeon sends an expedition to investigate it, laying the groundwork for a greater conspiracy and mystery that no one could have foreseen. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	20. Ghosts of Mendel

**April 12th, 70 CE. Mendel. L4. Luke Kavensky POV**

April 12th, Year 70 of the Cosmic Era. It has been one week since the Principality of Zeon had officially revealed itself to the wider Cosmic Era. With both the Earth Alliance and ZAFT now aware of Zeon's existence, the First Contact War had come to an end with both East Asia and ZAFT agreeing to Degwin's call for an armistice. All three nations, along with the rest of the Alliance and the neutrals of the Cosmic Era, were in the process of preparing for the Heliopolis Conference on April 22nd, a meeting between the nations of the Earth sphere which would settle the recognition of Zeon's sovereignty and territorial claims so that they would integrate with the Earth sphere, along with a hope that somehow a peaceful accord could be struck between the Alliance and ZAFT before the Bloody Valentine War could escalate into greater suffering.

Out of all the nations heading to Heliopolis, no one was being more prepared than Zeon. Determined to see the conference as the foundation for the Principality's domination upon the Cosmic Era, Gihren Zabi kept the Space Force in a state of total mobilization, nukes pointed at both the PLANTs and lunar cities to protect Zeon's claims while metaphorically planting the flag of Zeon across L2, L4, and the far side of the moon.

With the L4 Cluster now firmly under the defensive nuclear umbrella of Pezun, there was only one location left to block Zeon's conquest of Lagrange 4 as their zone of influence, the Mendel colony.

While Mendel was a private space colony that was constructed by medical companies with national ties to the Atlantic Federation, a presumed outbreak of deadly viral agents such as S-1, S-2, Ebola, Coronavirus, and many more diseases under the experimentation of the colony caused it to be completely abandoned with the AF swearing all ownership of the colony, now to be regarded as derelict debris.

Despite the fact that Mendel was in heavy disrepair with no human presence in the past 15 years, its physical presence could give the Atlantic Federation leeway for influence within the Lagrange. Not wanting the superstate to impose its presence, Gihren ordered the Space Force and Marines to launch an expedition to claim the colony as property of Zeon. Such an endeavor would become the largest homestead scheme in human history.

An expedition was quickly organized and launched from Side 3 on the 7th, arriving two days later on April 9th with a team of medical personnel from the Space Force being sent in to assess the lethality of Mendel's environment.

To the complete shock of the team, not only did they find Mendel to still have a functioning biosphere, but the entire colony was clean from any viral agents from the Universal Century, those exclusive to the Cosmic Era that Zeon was made aware of through Orb, and older diseases common to both.

The situation was made more confusingly grim when within the harbor and the outskirts of the colony, the medical team found hundreds of corpses, all of which appeared to have died not by disease, but by gunshot.

With the Mendel colony presenting a fate of death by terrorist attack rather than pandemic, the medical team was ordered back for fear of lingering pirates or traps, and an exploratory mission was now lead by the Marines.

A regiment was dispatched to explore the entirety of the colony, with 20 Zakus sent into the colony to act as protection for the Marines should they unexpectedly run into heavy firepower.

_'God, this place makes Chernobyl look like a vacation home.'_ Thought Lance Corporal Luke Kavensky, silently gliding through the air of Mendel with his platoon as they made their way towards GARM R&D, a facility which according to the old colonial records was the centerpiece of Mendel, a lab where anyone with enough money could turn their children into superhumans.

A hobby of interest for most of Luke's life was the research of ghost towns and cities on Earth. With most of humanity deported to the Sides, vast urban landscapes had been left to wither and were slowly reclaimed by the environment. Even the cities that were still populated suffered as for many entire districts would be depopulated and nothing would remain but rusts and ghosts.

Mendel was a far more disturbing sight than any of those haunted settlements as unlike the ghosts towns of Earth which were abandoned voluntarily or through force by the Federation, life in Mendel simply ceased with presumably all of its occupants dead within hours. With the frequent sight of corpses on the ground as they made their way to the colony, Mendel looked more and more like the aftermath of a battle in the Third World War despite the lack of hard damage to the colony's infrastructure.

After several minutes of travel, the platoon finally made its way to the destination, a rather odd-looking structure that appeared to be a cylinder with twelve smaller cylinders attached to the sides, three for each cardinal direction.

The Marines gently landed onto the ground and slowly made their way into the building. After they had safely made it through the entrance, the head of the platoon, a Lieutenant Julia Simpson, turned to address them.

"This right here is GARM R&D, the supposed pride and joy of Mendel before its sudden 'death by plague'. Since the entire colony was centered around this facility then it can be presumed that this was the terrorist main target. As such, steel yourself for a high body count going in. We are to scout every centimeter of this building until we gain a clear understanding of what the terrorists were after and if GARM is related in any way to the supposed viral outbreak. All computers are to be left untouched for the techies and any corpse you come across is to be left as intact as possible for forensics to get a clear picture of what went down. Feel free to go through any physical documents you come across, however don't spend too much time playing detective and leave all of the evidence where you found it.

All teams are to radio in their location every five minutes to myself. If I cannot be reached then all traffic is to go to Gunnery Sargent Pyle. If you come across any unusual environments, suspected traps, or signs of present human life, then you are to remain stationary and radio in for reinforcements. Am I made clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" All of the Marines replied.

"Good, now here is how we will divide our search. Ground floor teams are as follows; Kowalski and Vasquez-"

After a few minutes of organization, the Marines split up into groups of two and set about exploring their objectives, with some walking slowly across the building while others used their jetpacks to traverse between floors.

Fortunately for Luke, he was teamed up with his close friend Private Dwayne Flowers. The two were to patrol a section of the fifth floor which was supposed to contain some of GARM's most important projects, lucky them.

Climbing to the fifth floor with their verniers, the duo slowly made their way into the facility with Luke taking point and Dwayne keeping guard on the rear. Already the signs of horror seemed to continue on this level as the hallway they made their entry in was littered with a couple of skeletons.

"You ever think that we would have to go through this shit when we signed up?" Dwayne asked.

"You mean be transported to another timeline where the Earth sphere was divided into nation states and genetics moments after Independence, going into a mini coma with visions of a weird battle on Earth, have two sides of an ongoing war open fire on us for now good reason, and then after we kick their asses proceed to investigate a colony which reeks of death and smells dirtier than the Laplace Incident? No I did not." Luke said, with Dwayne rolling his eyes in response.

"Funny guy. Still, I ain't calling you a liar or anything, but you really still calling those dreams visions? We were on the verge of war with the Federation, you probably just dreamnt the whole thing up." Dwayne said.

He looked towards his friend with a momentary scowl then proceeded to focus back on the situation at hand, "The only reason I'm saying those dreams are visions is because not only was it too vivid and accurate, especially since most of my dreams look like I'm on acid, but I felt every experience that was happening. Not only that, but doesn't the fact that dozens within our regiment had visions of the same war across the Earth sphere mean anything to you? Hell, Blonski and I fought in two of the same battles and he confirmed it!"

Dwayne raised a hand in surrender, "Alright, alright I get it. Like I said, I aint calling you a liar. It's just that, things are already batshit crazy as it is with us crossing into another dimension with supermen. But every other man and women suddenly becoming psychics? If that's a thing then where the hell do we draw the line at weirdness?"

_'Or Newtypes.'_ Luke thought, though he kept the idea to itself. The debate on whether or not he and so many others had become Deikun's prophesied evolution had already beset several fierce arguments within the regiment. For now they had decided to safely settle on the term psychic so that there would be no more infighting on the Contolism's interpretations.

"We crossed space and time, so anything's possible at this point. Look, we're getting sidetracked, let's just focus on the mission, okay?"

"Sure. I swear to God though, if we run into motherfucking Cthullu in this lab then I'm out." Dwayne complained, earning a laugh from Luke.

As they continued their search, the topic of the visions didn't leave Luke's mind. Despite the fact that he had never physically been present, recalling the events brought about an amount of trauma. He fought in an actual war in some other time against the Earth Federation, not just any war, but a total war on a scale that surpassed the previous world wars.

Most of his memories were spent on Earth (how the hell Zeon invaded the planet was beyond Luke's guess) in a region which he guessed was North America. At first the visions were those of pleasant victories, however they slowly but surely descended into hellish nightmares. Luke's last memory was of him lying bloodied on the ground, desperately firing his pistol against an approaching mobile suit. It was a black and white mobile suit shaped like a samurai whose mere image terrified Luke to the core. A Gundam.

Fortunately for Luke, his morbid thoughts were kept down for now when he and Dwayne approached an unusual sight. it was another skeleton, though this one was clothed in military apparel. His uniform wasn't just any paramilitary outfit worn by terrorists and backwards militias on Earth either, it was a genuine article that had the same level of quality as the battledress currently worn by Luke and Dwayne.

Bending down, Dwayne examined the skeleton in as much detail as he could without disturbing it. "Huh, the dress reminds me of old uniforms from NATO in WW3." He remarked.

"NATO? How the hell would you know what they wore?" Asked Luke.

"I'm sort of a nerd on the late Cold War and have a small number of books on the period. Not only that, but I visited a military museum in my colony four months ago and whatever this bastard's wearing is similar in design to an American battledress."

"Similar, not the same?" Luke questioned.

"Nah. You could probably launch an attack with WW3 era equipment, but stuff like that would be expensive and rare as hell, only museums and a few private individuals would have such pieces. It's pretty different but has the same design philosophy as America's, and they never really changed their equipement until the Unification Wars."

"That doesn't make any sense though. America became the Atlantic Federation in this timeline and this place is an Atlantic colony. Their involvement in the Reconstruction War was limited to interventions in Latin America and they haven't had any terror wars since then. Why would they attack their own colony?"

"I don't know man. Back in the Cold War the CIA used to supply shady terror groups with weapons and money if they swore to fight the good fight against Communism. Perhaps a group like that launched an attack here. Still, if there was AF involvement then it would make sense why everyone kept away from the colony and never investigates this bullshit 'viral outbreak.'" Dwayne reasoned.

The two checked the body carefully for any identifying markers, though unfortunately they found no insignia to indicate a name or organization of allegiance. They radioed in their finding to the Lieutenant, who told them of similar reports across the lab. Not wanting to waste too much time playing detective, Luke motioned for Dwayne to continue the search.

For the next eight minutes their search continued quietly with a few more bodies littering the path, and the two investigating a couple of the offices. While they did their best to look at any open documents, all the information contained was solely focused on advanced biology and genetics, and with neither Marine holding a high aptitude in science it was all meaningless words to them.

A surprise came to the duo when they reached the office of what appeared to be the boss of the facility, a Doctor Ulen Hibiki. At first they tried to turn the door, however unlike the others it appeared to be locked. With Luke keeping watch for any intruders, Dwayne kicked the door hard, opening it with a start and sending a cloud of dust into the air.

Inside the Marines found corpses, however they were in a strange state in comparison to the previous two. One skeleton laid down against a desk with dried blood splattered on the wood and the floor. Broken bits of bone were present in the chest, crotch, and skull.

A second body was lined up against a wall and also appeared to suffer from bullet fractures. The damage on this one appeared to be focused on the cranium with a large hole present and a splatter of dry blood on the wall. With a pistol on the floor centimetres from the right hand, and the type of wound present, this person appeared to have committed suicide rather than be murdered by the terrorists.

Kneeling down, Luke carefully reached for a name tag present on the labcoat of the presumed suicide victim. On the tag was a picture of a beautiful young woman of Asian descent with brown hair and amethyst eyes. Her name was Doctor Via Hibiki.

"I got a Via Hibiki here. Probably Ulen's wife or sister." Luke said.

"And this here is Ulen." Dwayne said, pointing to the other body.

Luke frowned at the scene, "This doesn't make any sense. If these two were killed by terrorists then why was the door locked with their corpses left inside while all of the other civilians were just left at the scene of the crime without care. Not only that, but this Via chick looks like she killed herself."

"Suicide?" Dwayne questioned.

Luke nodded, "Now keep in mind I'm no cop so I may be spouting bullshit, but her jaw is pretty fucked up and the only exit wound is on the back of her skull, the evidence points to self-harm with a pistol. However, it could be possible that maybe some sicko terrorist put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger."

"Or maybe whatever the hell was happening here, she was so terrified that she thought that going out on her terms was for the best?" Dwayne reasoned. With Luke nodding sadly.

A glint on Via's jacket caught Luke's eye. Moving his fingers carefully to not heavily disturb her skeleton, Luke grabbed what looked to be a small piece of paper that was sticking out of the breast pocket on her white lab coat. As he further dragged the paper out of its place, Luke saw that it was a picture. When the image was fully revealed to him he let out a slight gasp in shock.

The photo was of Via in a yellow gown laying down on a bed. In her arms were two small babies, a girl with blond hair and a boy with brown hair, Luke presuming their genders based on the colors of the blankets wrapped around them. The image of Via holding her two children, her smiling showing warmth and joy, gave her a sort of serene beauty as the mother of these presumed newborns.

Tears welled up in Luke's eyes at the sight. Since her Lab I.D was the same image as her in the picture, then her children must have been born recently before the massacre. Unless she had her children on Earth and had them stay with some relatives, then they were probably murdered in the attack unless some terrorist had some sick sense of morality and decided to rescue them as pity, though considering the thousands of dead with confirmed numbers rising, Luke highly doubted it.

"How the hell could monsters like these exist?" Luke asked himself in a soft whisper. As if someone, or something had heard him, Luke recieved a reply.

"**AIIIIEEEE!**" Despite the lack of any human life in this section of GARM besides Luke and Dwayne, Luke heard what felt like dozens, if not hundreds of voices screaming right into his ears. The worst part was that the voices heavily resembled children.

"Auuughh!" Luke collapsed on the floor, rolling over in agony as the screams felt like several stabs at his heart. In desperation Luke yanked his helmet off and tried to block off the noise with his hands, but they had no effect.

"Luke! What the fuck you doing man?! What's going on?" Dwayne dropped the notes that he was reading and ran to his best friend's side. Dwayne tried to calm him down, but since Dwayne could not feel what Luke was going through it looked like the Marine was screeching like a madman for no reason.

"Shit, shit, FUCK! Lieutenant, Lance Corporal Kavensky has just collapsed on the floor and is yelling for no reason. This place may be a legit disease hole, but Kavensky's suit was not compromised at all." Dwayne spoke on the comm, his voice high pitched with an incredibly frightened tone at the display before him.

"No, it's not a disease, it's the kids. I..I have to save them!" Luke declared. While he was still tormented by the screams, a newfound resolve of determination entered his body, pumping some adrenaline for him to toughen through the pain. Luke grabbed his helmet and put it back on, then rapidly exited the office to rescue the victims.

"Luke! Wait! Shit, Lieutenant Kavensky looks half-mad, he's off on a chase to god knows where. I'm going to tail, requesting backup." Dwayne commed in, running in a desperate chase to save his friend from whatever he was about to do.

When the two Marines left the office, they missed a vital piece of the puzzle of Mendel which would have completely unraveled the mystery of its massacre, a revelation that in so many of the original timelines had gone completely unnoticed by humanity as Mendel collapsed and its tragedy remained a mystery. It was a small camcorder that was placed on a bookshelf, one which showed the crimes of the colony and whose fault the massacre rested upon.

Fueled by a need to cease the screaming and save those who he felt in pain, Luke ran the fastest that he ever had in his life. He sprinted like a mad cheetah through the hallway, desperate to reach his goal. Despite the fact that Luke had never set foot in GARM, or even this colony before an hour ago, he twisted and turned through the halls with a clear sense of direction, guided by his developing sixth sense with each turn sending him a flash that added another piece of the map.

Three minutes later, Luke had reached his goal. As the door he stood in front of slid open, Luke stood at attention with his assault rifle ready to blast anyone who dared to hurt the children.

After the door opened Luke rushed inside, "ZEON MARINES!" Luke Shouted in viscous anger, eyes scouring the room and swinging his rifle around to attack the villain that he had been expected.

To Luke's immense confusion, nobody seemed to be within the vast room except for him. The only sounds that were currently present was the smooth hum of what appeared to be water tanks, the faint buzz of computers running, and Luke's hard footsteps which echoed thanks to the metal on his suit's boots.

"What?" Luke asked himself. Not only was there no sign of life, but the screaming had stopped completely when he had entered. "Hello?! My name's Luke Kavensky, I'm a Marine of the Principality of Zeon. You can come out now, I won't hurt you." Luke spoke, believing himself to be communicating with some child or children that were hiding.

_"Look closely."_ Spoke a flurry of hushed whispers from dozens of children despite the fact that once again it appeared that Luke was the only person inside.

Shaking slightly in apprehension, Luke did as ordered and investigated the contents of the room, all the while remaining vigilant of a possible attack. For a small period of time Luke's confusion still persisted, his lack of scientific knowledge leading to multiple theories of what could possibly be hidden in this chamber.

When Luke reached the edge of the railing, and paid extremely close attention to what was inside of the tanks, his mind reeled in complete horror.

Luke collapsed on the floor, his gun falling to the side as he laid on his knees. Taking his helmet off once more, Luke's breathing was rising in near hyperventilation. With the shock increasing, his body reacted to the inhumane sight with Luke vomiting heavily on the floor.

"Luke, Luke it's me Dwayne! What the hell do you think you're doing? Marine's always stick toge-" Dwayne had finally caught up to Luke and was ready to give him a stern verbal beatdown, when his eyes drifted to the sight that had brought Luke down. "Sweet mother of God."

Due to the lack of psychic trauma that Luke had experienced, Dwayne had managed to keep his breakfast in, though just barely. For in front of the two Marines were several deformed fetuses, suspended in a state of eternal limbo as the chamber technically kept them alive, yet it was a cruel fate for they had been conceived yet they would never experience the first moments of life, a mixed blessing as any form of birth would have lead to a few moments of absolute hell before expiration.

The unborn life in these tubes were only but a small sample of the horrors of Doctor Ulen Hibiki, the Madman of Mendel who dared to play God.

**A/N: Hello everyone, Kaiser Chris here in what is sure to be my fastest Gundam update. So in this chapter the Zeon Marines launched an expedition to Mendel, experiencing a greater amount of horror of the colony's abandonment that was glossed over in SEED, along with setting up a greater mystery on what really happened leading up to the day of the attack. Out of all of SEED's plotlines, the Mendel arc is a true shame of wasted potential as it showed the dark side of Coordination that was glossed over by the rest of the series, Kira and Cagali's origins and how their father was an abusive mad scientist with plenty of fridge horror in his relationship to Via, and just the sheer brutality of Blue Cosmos in that they were able to wipe out an entire colony and cover it up, with the Archangel never once attempting to reveal this to the greater public and it remaining a secret for the rest of the Cosmic Era. The truth of Mendel will come out in its entirety in my interpretation with Zeon here to stay and uncover just what happened, leading to several plotlines that dramatically change the fate of some of the main SEED characters as well as unveil the darker pasts of others.**

**Luke Kavensky and Dwayne Flowers are OC's of mine. If it wasn't obvious enough, Luke is a Newtype (pretty average in comparison to people like Amuro, Kamille, and Banagher) and through his Newtype awareness experienced the psychic scars of Mendel's horror in their experimentation on the unborn. The reason this didn't pop up in the anime is due to all Newtypes becoming far more sensitive in Cosmic Crusade thanks to the Event along with those present not being developed enough to truly comprehend what happened. Kira is a pretty weak Newtype and as such it didn't affect him despite his history with the colony. Mu is severely underdeveloped in his powers and as such wasn't effected like how Amuro was pretty numb to the war until he got into the Gundam. As for Rau, he was most likely powerful enough to feel it but either didn't give a damn or rejoiced in the suffering that took place. If any of those three step foot on Mendel, they'll feel the scars for sure in this story.**

**Next chapter will be the beginning of the Reaction Arc, leading up to the Heliopolis Peace Conference Arc that was hinted at the beginning. It'll be a time for each nation to react to the revelation of what just happened and the greater war. Next chapter specifically will focus on ZAFT as well as their allies Africa and Oceania, both of whom I am extremely excited to explore. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


	21. Risk

**April 5th, 70 CE. 1900 Colonial Standard. Aprilius One. PLANT. Siegel Clyne POV.**

If anyone were to observe the PLANT Supreme Council then they would instantly notice an air of gloom and doom. It was understandable considering the circumstances, but in the years before in their darkest times there was always at least a sense of optimism that PLANT could move forward and tackle their issues one at a time. Such a feeling of despair had only been seen once before in the aftermath of Bloody Valentine, though at least then PLANT had an assurance for their future through the N-Jammers. Here? They had just poked a mighty and seemingly unkillable dragon, and if said dragon was hostile to the concept of Coordination then they would be destroyed and have all of the blood for the past six weeks, all of the gains and the immense casualties they inflicted upon the Earth be for nothing.

At the conference table Siegel weakly pulled his coffee mug to his lips and then drank as much as he could in one go. He had barely less than 10 hours of sleep in the past six days and while his Coordinator physiology could take far more exhaustion than a Natural's, he was not a man who could live without sleep and thus the current situation was taking its toll. The only thing keeping Siegel awake was several litters of caffeine and pure will, and even then he wasn't in the best state with his eyes dazing when in one place for too long as his vision becoming blurry at a few times this past day. Fortunately they had all agreed that after this last meeting that everyone would go home, get a half a day's good rest, and then come back so that they could run their nations refreshed and mentally collected, so at least he wasn't going to die of sleep exhaustion.

_'We were so damn close.'_ Siegel cursed. He couldn't really get mad at any of his colleagues though, as by then there was a collective guilt washing over them, even for Patrick, that made them aware of how much they had messed up. It would also be hypocritical for Siegel to lash his fury considering he was part of the problem in the beginning.

After finding out about Zeon's existence the council had went into an intense debate on whether the message was authentic or a hoax. Siegel had stepped up and tried to take command with him gradually convincing a few of his colleagues that Zeon could be real, but emotions were too high for a quick and easy resolution. By the time he got a majority of the council behind them with them getting ready to craft a message, Degwin had released his speech to the Earth sphere, implicating PLANT as a barbaric nation that struck the new nation from another dimension unprovoked, feeding into Blue Cosmos propaganda about how Coordinators were a group of people who wished to dominate and destroy all Naturals.

_'At least East Asia did the same mistake, and if Zeon saw the horror of the ghettoes and read our history, then perhaps they'll sympathize us and and give us mercy.' _Siegel hopefully thought.

Were it only ZAFT that attacked Zeon then all hope would be lost, but with East Asia attacking Zeon _after_ they established diplomatic relations and Zeon experiencing how cruel the Alliance was in their rule to the colonists, with Zeon's supposed history being one of oppression from Earth, then perhaps there was hope after all for a peaceful settlement, and should Zeon have tense relations with the Alliance then they would sue for peace with ZAFT and all of this bloodshed could end.

However, this all depended upon Zeon accepting Coordinators, and Siegel did not have enough of a read on their history and culture besides some strange fixation on a concept called Newtypes to make a firm guess on if they could practice tolerance. Not only that, but by all indications Zeon was an authoritarian regime, meaning that the fate of PLANT would now be decided by the whims of a family rather than its people.

Considering the fact that Zeon seemed to adopt Nazi aesthetics at first glance, the signs weren't good.

The door to the council chambers shot open and in walked Eileeen Canaver, looking just as fatigued as the rest of the council with her eyes being full bloodshot. "The Diplomatic Committee has fully compiled a list of terms that we find to be the most we shall possibly concede to Zeon in negotiations." Eileen declared.

"Before that, how goes the effort to have Orb host the peace talks?" Yuri Amalfi asked as Eileen sat down. Since Orb was the only nation to make peaceful contact and establishment of relations with Zeon, the Supreme Council, and presumably the Alliance leadership, was hoping to use Orb as a tool to butter up Zeon towards their side to lighten terms. If the talks were hosted within Orb and run by Uzumi, a man who was for better or worse a starkly neutral pacifist, then maybe they could appeal to his sense of mercy to calm down the Zabi's and accept lighter terms for what was a war born from miscommunication. If Orb did not host it then most likely they would be forced to go to Zeon, and in Lagrange 2 they would be completely at the mercy of Degwin and his brood.

"When I talked to Uzumi he was fully in support of the idea and wished to do all he could to end both the wars with Zeon and our current struggle against the Alliance. He's trying to push for a conference at Heliopolis and if we and the Alliance agree then it'll occur at the end of the month, though we'll need to accept a cease fire soon."

"Heliopolis is a good location. It's on the opposite side of the Earth sphere and is as far away from Zeon as possible while still remaining in the Earth sphere, so they can't control the environment. From what I read the Universal Century also had a single colony there so Zeon has no emotional connections to it. There is Artemis, but it won't be a threat unless Eurasia has a secret superweapon at the base." Patrick deduced, with the rest of the council nodding in agreement.

"I then spoke to Dozle and Gihren, Degwin's eldest sons, about the matter. Dozle seemed amnicable to the idea, a good thing since he lost thousands from our ships and mobile suits, however Gihren stated that Zeon would not accept Heliopolis as a site unless we recognized their "Liberation" of the far side from the remnants of the Earth Federation. Despite my best efforts he stated that there would be no return of POWs until a hypothetical conference began, but that they'll be kept in the best conditions possible, he didn't budge from this no matter what I tried." Eileen stated, with a look of frustration when mentioning Gihren by name.

"Did they demand for us to withdraw from Lorenz?" Ezalia Joule asked with concern.

Eileen shook her head, "No, they were surprisingly content with Lorenz. All they asked was that none of our forces from there go within 100 kilometers of their lunar cities or Lagrange 2."

"Then I say let Zeon keep those cities. We have no way to capture them, those territories were never ours to begin with, and if the Earth Federation treated Zeon anywhere near as bad as we were by the Alliance then Zeon's free to do as they please with them." Ezalia said, with murmurs of agreement across the room.

Siegel did not exactly feel the same way as he thought that perhaps there was more to the story and that the Federal Remnant should have its own voice. However, this was the settlement of a feud from another universe and as Ezalia pointed out, they had no power to intervene. So for now he had to sit by and leave hundreds of thousands of Earth Federation men and women to the mercy of Zeon. It wouldn't do after all to put the needs of people from another dimension over his constituents and the rest of PLANT, he would be rightly kicked out of office for doing so.

"While it is a tragedy that so many of ZAFT cannot return, we must accept this as a consequence of our lack of rationality and hope for the best." Parnel Jesek said, while no one vocally reacted there was a sad and begrudging agreement, though he saw some like Patrick fume, they all kept their emotions locked in as this was a small price to pay for their aggression.

"If there are no other questions then I shall begin listing the terms." Eileen said, with her doing so after a few seconds of silence.

"The PLANT Republic shall claim full responsibility for the outbreak of war against the Principality of Zeon and acknowledge that its part was one of pointless aggression done through a lack of communication and flawed leadership in the events leading up to the outbreak of hostilities.

The PLANT Republic shall recognize the independence and sovereignty of the Principality of Zeon and strive for the creation of diplomatic relations so that future tragedies such as the outbreak of this war can be prevented and that both nations may engage in a fair exchange of goods, people, and ideas.

The PLANT Republic shall recognize the total territorial claims of the Principality of Zeon. In regards to the Solomon Base, the PLANT Republic shall cede the territory of 500 kilometres in a radius around Solomon Base as rightful Zeon territory.

ZAFT shall be prohibited transit through the territories of the Principality of Zeon unless given approval by the Principality. The armed forces of the Principality of Zeon are given free transit through the territories of the PLANT Republic. After 24 hours of loitering in the sovereign space of PLANT, the Zeon Armed Forces must request permission for continued stay or they must retreat.

As compensation to the Principality of Zeon as the victim of an unprovoked attack, the PLANT Republic shall pay reparations of 250,000 Zeo's to each family of the deceased along with 100,000 Zeos to any individuals who were wounded during the battle of Solomon. These payments shall be conducted within a year. An additional payment of 20 Billion Zeos shall be transferred from the PLANT Republic to the Principality of Zeon, which shall be paid over the course of five years with a mandatory rate of 4 Billion Zeos per year, which said debt being tackled with a 3% interest rate per each year that the PLANT Republic either does not pay the debt within the allotted time or is not able to fully pay the debt beyond the due date.

The PLANT Republic shall not place any taxation on goods from the Principality of Zeon for 15 years, where during such a period the Principality of Zeon is free to tax goods from the PLANT Republic at whatever rate they desire. "

Eileen finished her speech and settled down, with the council descending into a highly uncomfortable atmosphere. While everyone knew that they had to _concede something_ to Zeon in order to get peace quickly and still ensure their independence from the Alliance, hearing such terms out loud was a harsh taste of reality.

"I hope you all understand that what we were going for was a series of terms that give Zeon a sense of complete and satisfying victory while at the same time not placing anything that could cripple us in the long term. I know that this sounds bad, but on the macro-level our sovereignty and power is still reserved with half of the terms I listed merely being an acknowledgement of reality. We'll gain more in the long run once we dictate our terms to the Alliance, and I'm confident that once we're at peace our superior technology, quality of population, and reach into the Asteroid Belt can keep us as nominal equals with Zeon." Eileen said.

While Siegel was more than willing to agree with the logic, there were still many who were unconvinced.

"Why can't we simply move for a white peace? I don't want to make light of the tragedy that just occurred, but it was one battle and the deaths were in the low tens of thousands with Zeon showing that they can destroy our Space Force. Won't a simple acknowledgement of victory be enough?" Questioned Jeremy Maxwell.

"A status quo antebellum is precisely what I'll be aiming for as the round begins, however I doubt Zeon is going to feel too magnanimous considering how Degwin threatened to destroy any nation that dares to oppose their independence while offering peace. Plus in Realpolitik terms, having just arrived they'll try to get as many concessions as they want from us and the Alliance to establish themselves as the dominant power before we can recover from the war or possibly unite against them. What better way to assert themselves by imposing strong concessions against the nation that had just managed to wipe out a majority of Earth's power grid." Eileen said.

"I highly doubt that a white peace is possible. White peaces traditionally happened because there was a need to keep up a balance of power in the world order with said white peace not being inflicted willingly by the participants, but by outside Great Powers or superpowers. This happened in the 19th century with the Concert and later Great Power system, and in the 20th century with the League and UN, the latter of which was to prevent the Cold War from veering one way to the Americans or Soviets. Here there is no nation to keep Zeon in check, they hold all of the cards, and they're riding a high off of capturing the far side of the moon and Lagrange 4 with their precious independence from the Earth Federation. We may not know much about Zeon's character, but greed is a fundamental aspect of Natural nature and showing themselves as superior to the superhumans is too damn tempting of a scenario to let go." Patrick said, being of the highest authority in the room on military history and international diplomacy due to his specialization in history.

"I think Patrick has said it best, a white peace at this point will take a miracle and there is no way Zeon will want a clean victory over us. For now it would be our best bet to hope for the worst and try to be as amenable to concessions as we can without risking key aspects of our sovereignty and national security as Eileen said. At the same time we shouldn't let defeatism rule us. Thanks to East Asia's usage of nukes and the far greater loss of life they inflicted onto Zeon, a majority of their anger will hopefully be inflicted upon them, furthered by the appalling sight of the L4 Cluster. Their revered Zeon Zum Deikun appeared to be a man who was deadset on the freedom and independence of all Spacenoids, so if we present ourselves as fellow Spacenoids that just happen to have altered genes then I think we can get the best deal." Siegel offered, with a look of thanks by Patrick for his agreement with his assessment. While he and Siegel had fallen to the state of rivalry leading up to Uroboros, they had now agreed to lower the hatchet and act for the good of PLANT, and outside of a few heated moments the peace had been kept.

"On the reparations, just how are we going to pay Zeon? Their currency is meaningless to us and in these trying times with Earth's economy likely to be in a depression for the next decade, I doubt they'll easily accept fiat currency." Orson White pointed out.

"I was planning on using our gold reserves since in my talks with Zeon, Gihren said that in the near future they'll likely to transition their currency to a temporary gold-backed form for the coming years until such a time that the international markets have stabilized and they can switch to fiat. Our industry will be heavily affected, but if need be we can ask for loans from Africa and Oceania, and in our rough estimates the reparations will be about $40-$50 billion of their currency at most. We could use other precious metals such as platinum or silver to have a more diverse offering is Zeon is agreeable. Besides I'm sure our trade, even with the lack of tariffs, can cover some of the payment through the indirect revenue of corporate and income taxes."

For the next hour they discussed the terms in detail along with any other potential concessions that they needed to produce, and while there was some grumbling and feet dragging throughout, in the end they had roughly agreed to the format and dismissed themselves with the agenda of tackling the supply chain to their forces on Earth, coordination their forces for a coming cease fire, keeping watch over Solomon, and finalizing the details of the conference with Zeon and Orb.

With a clear goal ahead of them and the council united and focused, Siegel could finally allow himself some measure of rest. After twenty minutes of travel he headed back to his home, with Lacus greeting him and being as much of an angel as she always was by leading him to his bed, giving him some much needed love in the form of a hug and kiss, and informing him that there was a plate of fried rice that she had prepared waiting for him in the fridge when he waked up. Tired and slurring his thanks to the young girl who was far too god of a child then he deserved, Siegel collapsed on his bed and earned some well-needed sleep.

**April 7th, 70 CE. 0300 West African Standard. Lagos. African Community. Third Person POV**

Deep inside of the command bunker for AFRICOMM, the headquarters of the African Community Defense Force, a meeting had just taken place that would drastically alter the immediate course of the war for the Community. The meeting went on for hours and while there was heavy opposition to the sudden drastic change in strategy, a majority of the flag officers present were persuaded to the President and his plan, thus making the operation go through.

When the meeting ended 53 generals and admirals walked out of the large conference room to resume their commands and adapt for the new commands. Unlike the rest of the world who adopted a traditional pyramid structure for command when dealing with their military, Africa's martial leadership was more akin to a circle, with 54 of the highest ranked officers being in charge of their own seperate departments that were all equal to one another despite the differences in branch and power. These men and women were then under the nominal peacetime command of a rotating Defense Committee made up of members of the Community's Congress who served a single four year term needing to step down. Multiple terms were impossible for the Defense Committee unless the Congress was full of incumbents, which it rarely ever was. Then at the end of the line of command was the President who was the commander-in-chief, with the constitution giving them a high amount of powers in regards to the military which along with the other wide range of executive powers made the African President one of the most powerful offices on Earth, with only the East Asian Presidency and Orb oligarchy having greater authority in their own governments.

This unique structure was adopted in the creation of the African Community so that the Community could not be plagued with the rise of military strongman who could easily overturn the government and rule as as a dictator, destroying the Community's government and threatening to slide Africa back into the old days of warlordism. While observers could claim the military structure to be archaic, with the lack of any coups or rebellion, it had so far done its job.

Back to the meeting at hand, 54 flag officers had walked in, and 53 had walked out, with one remaining in defiance in the hope to somehow change the President's mind. This man was General Paul Diallo, Quartermaster Chief of the Supply Corps who in the past several months had been assigned the near impossible tasks of setting up the Community's war machine to go to war with Earth's Superpowers and their neighbor of South Africa. Diallo had done his duty begrudgingly, however this most recent operation handed to him by his president was going too far.

When President Kwame Bujine attempted to leave and avoid Diallo, Diallo moved quickly and blocked the President's, along with the Secretary of State who was at his side, exit. The Presidential Guard made a wall in front of Bujine, attempting to intimidate Diallo into leaving, however the General stood his ground.

Seeing that the stubborn uniformed mule in front of him would not bulge, Bujine sighed and decided to entertain the man so he could quickly brush him off.

"What is it General? You have your orders and as such I expect you to carry them out. The majority of your peers have agreed that Operation Dayyamu is a sound plan of action, even you have admitted that it will lead to victory. You had your chance to give your criticism, now I expect you to obey." Bujine said coldly.

Despite the obvious dislike that was radiating from his commander-in-chief, Diallo was still undeteered. "I understand sir, and I will carry out your orders. However, before I leave I must for one last time implore you to change your mind. Dayyamu will no doubt lead to victory, however any gains will only be of a minor tactical nature that will not have any bearing on the peace negotiations. The Alliance will surrender in Heliopolis no matter what. ZAFT has stolen their power, the loss of one canal and a peninsula full of sand will not change the outcome. Let us work with PLANT and then save the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers." Diallo pleaded.

The plan in question, Operation Dayyamu, was an invasion of the Sinai peninsula with the ultimate goal of capturing the Suez Canal and opening up the Road to Jerusalem thanks to the advancement of Army Group Egypt and ZAFT's 2nd Terrestrial Division.

In the original plan for the war on Earth, Army Group Egypt was to tie down Eurasia's Arabian and Israeli forces so that they would not be sent to Spain or help in the relief efforts in the face of the N-Jammers. With the African Army stretched thin to protect its borders, the only offensive actions taken would be to the Iberian offensive and a strike into Uganda to capture the Lake Victoria Mass Driver. Once either of these objectives were completed, then enough manpower would be freed to take the Suez and march all the way to Tehran and Constantinople, and that was if the Alliance hadn't caved in by then and given Africa all that they had demanded and then some.

Then things were thrown off course completely by the arrival of Zeon and their war with ZAFT and East Asia. With ZAFT suffering a huge defeat at the hands of Zeon, and the constant presence of an asteroid equipped with fusion nukes and a fleet equal to the entirety of ZAFT at their doorstep, ZAFT was turtling in and preparing for a defense of the homeland while they desperately tried to open negotiations with Zeon. This caused them to neglect their forces on Earth, thus their allies and terrestial divisions were abandoned with the exception of a single supply run that only dropped 30% of the expected supplies.

With the ZAFT Divisions lacking the surplus ammunition and weaponry that they had expected, along with the resources necessary to set up Earthside bases and supply depots, the ZAFT Whitecoats had ordered a halt to all operations. Without the support of ZAFT as their vanguard, the African Army had to pause in their offensive in order to compensate for the absence of their allies as well as any possible moves by Zeon. As such, Africa only held less than a couple hundred square kilometres of territory in both Spain and Uganda, far below their expectations.

When word had arrived the previous day that ZAFT and the Alliance had reached a cease fire agreement with Zeon to take place on the 14th and that peace talks would be held in Heliopolis on the 22nd, there was much hope within the African forces that the war was now over and they could rest easy as within weeks they would gain major concessions from Eurasia and South Africa at the diplomatic table and thus avenge the Century of Humiliation that had been inflicted upon them after WWII. However, their expectations had been proven greatly wrong when Bujine revealed his plan to take the Suez Canal despite the lack of buildup at the front, lack of orbital support by ZAFT, the Eurasian satellite network still being intact, and the inability of the African Navy and Air Force to provide full support with the operation set to take place in 24-48 hours.

At the sight of the generals defiance, Bujine was beginning to fume. Before he could lash out, the President was stopped by the pull of the man at his side on his arm, the Secretary of State Mahamudu Najibe. Unlike his superior, Najibe had kept a cool and collected air throughout the talk.

"General, while you have legitimate military concerns, this operation is of the upmost necessity for the upcoming peace talks. If we do not score a decisive victory against the Alliance then our place at the table will be ignored and we will have made enemies of the world's superpowers with only prestige to show for the losses we have incurred. If we are to establish our position and weaken our neighbors, then taking the suez is a must as a decisive bargaining chip and to show the world the power of the African Community. Najibe said calmly.

Diallo narrowed his eyes at distrust in the Secretary. When Bujine had been elected, he had promised to be a mainly domestic leader who would focus on great works inside of the nation that would push Africa to be an equal to the superpowers despite its lack of access to space. However, upon Najibe being appointed as Secretary of State, Bujine had led Africa down a more jingoistic foreign policy which included an arms build up, greater antagonism towards Eurasia and South Africa, and the recent move to the PLANTs despite the massive unpopularity of Coordination within the Community. Diallo did not know if Bujine had always been a good politician or would have truly implemented his campaign promises, but whatever signs of that promised visionary existed, it had been washed away by Najibe's influence.

"Secretary, while furthering our national interests is all well and good, I do not see how spending so much blood for a single canal, no matter how vital it is, will help us at the peace conference. You do not see ZAFT making a run for Victoria or Oceania launching an invasion of Taiwan. Why can we not just trust our allies and you do your job properly." Diallo said, all but goading the Secretary by calling him bad at his job for necessitating this.

To Diallo's small disappointment, Najibe was undeterred in emotion. "ZAFT and Oceania have no need for sudden offensives as they have already proved their worth against the Alliance. ZAFT ahnillated their space forces in orbit and the N-Jammer is proof enough of their superiority. Oceania has taken out Pearl Harbor and most of the Pacific fleets for the Alliance. Meanwhile, our Navy has been unable to destroy even a plurality of Eurasia and South Africa's Navies and our damage to their war machines is minute. If we are to gain respect, then this offensive shall go through." Najibe said.

The absolute lack of the coming casualties from the upcoming offensive and focus merely on Africa "showing their power" and looking as strong as the other superstates when Africa had already done so with nothing to prove infuriated Diallo. _'Damned politicians, they never know our struggles, always hyping the glories of war and never sacrificing.'_ Indeed neither Bujine or Najibe had served in the military despite their hard jingoism in foreign policy.

"Sir, what about the Zeon? They are still a complete unknown and unless we have all of our forces at standby, they could come from above and take us out however they wish." Diallo reasoned, trying to appeal to the general aura of fear surrounding the arrival from another dimension.

Unfortunately, his attempt had utterly failed with Bujine waving him off, "We have no space forces and ZAFT has shown to be completely incompetent against Zeon, there is nothing to stop them from invading and winning no matter what action the Army takes. Besides, the Secretary here has kept the peace with Zeon with them not holding us responsible for ZAFT's idiocy, not to mention their agreement to the damn cease fire that is the cause of this offensive despite Zeon holding the cards. At this point you are grasping at straws general, either heed my orders or I shall relieve you of command." Bujine ordered, at this point dropping all pretenses of letting Diallo having his say and using rank.

Not wanting to push the envelope further, Diallo saluted and left the scene before he had to stick around any longer. The General walked out of the room in a fury, marching down the hallway to his station, only to be met with the large form of Admiral Joao Barcona.

Diallo walked past Barcona, with the Admiral following with a tsk of disapproval, "I told you my friend that the man is a stubborn mule and you would only be met with a wall. What exactly were you trying to accomplish? Unless the opposition or terrorists strike him now, you'll be on his list of enemies." Barcona said in concern for his friend.

Diallo rolled his eyes at the talk, "What is the worst that bastard will do, retire me? I was going to in four years, that would just be extraditing the process. I dislike that man but it's not like he's the dictators of old, having a bad reputation is nothing compared to the risk of purge during the Humiliation. Besides, I had a damned good reason to fight, to stick up for the men, if you and the others had stayed with me we could have formed a front and changed his mind. You saw how he insulted the Navy, how could you just let that down?" Diallo asked.

The true reason for the Navy's lack of success in comparison to Oceania is that unlike the Pacific nation whose navy was designed for great blue-water operations spread across thousands of kilometres, Africa's Navy was mainly intended to play defense and hug the coasts from invasion while the bulk of the budget went to the Army and Air Force. Despite this, Bujine had found fault at the Navy for not taking advantage of the N-Jammer and magically wiping out Eurasia's fleets.

"I did not want to take that insult lying down, however at this point it is a done deal and there were too many of our colleagues who were on board from the beginning. The President could always claim to have had a majority support, and if you talk to the common soldier they're just as likely to want to give Eurasia a black eye. I don't like the idea of losing so many lives so close to the cease fire either, but it's not like it's never been done in history. Eurasia is crippled and satellites have shown their forces to be spread out and focused in Europe. With the ZAFT mobile suits at our side, victory will be assured and the Sinai will rightfully return to African hands, and with Gibraltar we can rule the Mediterranean. The only thing that could go wrong is an attack by Zeon, but we have done those space people no wrong." Barcona said.

A feeling of unease rose in Diallo at the mention of Zeon. That damned nation that had thrown the entire war into a loop had so far ignored Africa for the most part, though it was rather understandable given they had no presence in space. It was already bad enough for the Community to be bogged down by the imperialist superpowers that composed the Alliance, but now that a new player had entered the solar system that had more space development than all of the Cosmic Era combined? It was now going to take Africa decades before they could ever hope of becoming a superpower.

"Speaking of, what do you think of the Zeon? For me, I find it suspicious as hell that this nation not only choose to turn one of its politicians into a monarch, but that they so blatantly display Fascist iconography. If it weren't for the lack of racial oppression and their integration of Africans from their timeline, then I would think we were dealing with Europe of old." Diallo said, distrust of the new nation heavily evident.

Barcona nodded in agreement, "I also find the culture and government of Zeon very uncomfortable, but at this point we're only looking at the bare surface and haven't had a chance to read deeply, nor has Zeon had a chance to prove themselves as a respectable state. While their monarchy reeks of something akin to Amin or Mobutu, there doesn't seem to be any clear indication that such horrid oppression is taking place on the likes of those false kings. Since this was a timeline that unified into one world government and discovered fusion power, anything is possible in terms of cultural divergence. Since most of their population is made up of ethnic groups that were oppressed by the West and East, hopefully they find solidarity in us and we can become friends later and use them as a counter to PLANT. For now all we can do is wait and see." Barcona said.

Not able to find any argument, Diallo nodded and then broke off the conversation with a farewell, with him then returning to his office to plan the offensive that he despised. In the coming days, Diallo would find Dayyamu to be both of and against his worst fears.

**April 8th. 70 CE. 1100 Eastern Australian Standard. Canberra. Federal Republic of Oceania.**

In comparison to the other Capitols of the Cosmic Era, Canberra had a reputation as a rather quiet city. It didn't have the power and authority of Moscow and Washington, the rich culture and history of Beijing or Singapore, or the luxury that Olofat boasted. Canberra was simply a small city where the three branches of the Oceania government lived and operated in service of their country, where one could experience a small slice of Oceania culture and history, and where tourists could experience an okay entertainment and night life that was mostly meant to cater towards overworked bureaucrats.

What Oceania did have in comparison to the other capitols was the status of being a peaceful city. While the other capitols would be inflicted with major protests or political strife, Canberra had always been a center of calm political service with the exception of the S2 Outbreak. Such a reputation was not on display today.

"DOWN WITH THE PATCHWORKER PUPPETS!"

"MCMAHON THE WARMONGER!"

"OCEANIA MUST NEVER BE AT WAR WITH EURASIA!"

Across the city's boundaries, hundreds of thousands of Oceanians had rushed into the capitol to protest the nation's ongoing and unexpected participation in the war against the Earth Alliance. Many were either affiliated with Blue Cosmos or sympathetic to the organization, disgusted that their nation was now run by Coordinator puppets and were killing Naturals to allow ZAFT to dominate the world. However, these people were not the sole force of the protest, and not even the majority.

Many segments of Oceania society were disgusted by the government's sudden entry into the war without the desire or consent of the population. To them it was a corrupt war of imperialism that ruined the peace that Oceania had maintained since the Reconstruction War for the greed of politicians. Many were pacifists and saw the shedding of any bloodshed unless attacked a great evil. The opposition came out in droves for what they saw as blood being shed to secure the Big Two's dominance over the government. Many thought that this wasn't their war to fight, but an unjust attack on the Alliance in service of the elite of PLANT. A heavy plurality were simply scared of the consequences of making themselves an enemy and shedding the blood of the four most powerful nations on Earth, never mind the fact that they were now allied with a nation that unjustly attacked a country from another dimension that had access to _nuclear fusion_.

While these people were not yet representative of a majority of the Federal Republic of Oceania, they were in the millions and rising each day, with the potential to soon overtake public opinion of the government didn't take control of the PR war.

Watching the heavy opposition from inside The Lodge, the seat of power for the Oceania Executive Branch, President Owen McMahon released a heavy sigh. He had expected that there would be many who would not take his decision to lead Oceania into war against the Alliance well, however, the current turnout was approaching his worst fears. The protests were so large and intense that he could hear the shouts of anger taking place near The Lodge's perimeter, with McMahon needing to call in a couple of Army battalions to reinforce security alongside the Secret Service.

_'They may hate me today but when we achieve victory I'll be vindicated. Our great grandchildren will learn of how we took a stand against evil and how our country emerged stronger with it.'_ Thought McMahon in reassurance, doing his best to stay strong and justify his actions.

While McMahon could acknowledge that from the outside his actions looked like an out of touch head of state who lead his nation to war for personal gain, there were many moral and realpolitik reasons for him to ally with PLANT. First of all was the fact that it was simply the right thing to do. While Oceania had slowly embraced Coordination as the future, most of the world had gone completely reactionary and hunted down children for being supposed monsters and punishing them for a "crime" that they had no control over. Coordination lead to an improved version of humanity and instead of making sure that as many of the next generation could be augmented, nations like the Atlantic Federation segregated or murdered their citizens for having different genes. Oceania had tolerated these crimes of genetic cleansing far too long and when McMahon became President he vowed that he would support PLANT in any way he could to stop the rise of genetic Nazism and create a good future for his Coordination children. PLANT was in the right for their revolution and Oceania should naturally support them on their path to independence.

There were also more pragmatic reasons that McMahon had used to get support within his party and the opposition. For far too long Oceania had been kept in the dirt and forced to exist in mediocrity while the Big Three had monopolized space exploration and forced their neighbors to bend to their whims as toys for a new Cold War. In the beginning of the Cosmic Era, Oceania had been a firm ally of the Atlantic Federation that had been treated with the respect and dignity they deserved. As time went on the relationship became increasingly one-sided in the Federation's favor with them being used as a shield against East Asia with Oceania markets being flooded with Atlantic products and culture while the Federation refused to import from Oceania. While Oceania was restricted on how many resources it could extract from the Pacific in the name of environmental preservation, the Atlantic Federation had free access to the solar system with Oceania only able to look on from Earth in envy.

ZAFT's dominance in space and its technological supremacy with the N-Jammers proved that it would win the war no matter how many men or resources the Alliance had. When ZAFT representatives let McMahon in on the secret of the N-Jammer, he knew that a new world order was being created and that Oceania could either join and rise above its current standing or be left in the dust. Thus, in addition to taking a stand against racism and the naked Imperialism of the Cosmic Era superpowers, Oceania would finally earn its rightful place in the sun and dominate the Pacific.

Or at least this was the plan...until Zeon popped into existence.

Whatever the moral faults of Oceania's entry into the war were, it would not matter in the end due to Oceania's rapid conquest of the Pacific islands with a minimal loss of life thanks to the presence of the N-Jammers, allowing Oceania to destroy the Pacific fleets of the Atlantic Federation, East Asia, and Eurasia with little concrete opposition. Oceania had already proved their success with the conquest of a dozen island chains and the destruction of a plurality of the AF Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, Zeon's existence and ZAFT's inability to perform basic reconnaissance with them shooting first and never asking questions now meant that the nation which had just been crowned as the dominant power of the Cosmic Era was now at the mercy of this Fascist state from another dimension. If Zeon saw PLANT as a threat then they might limit their gains against the Alliance or end their independence altogether, leaving Oceania at the mercy of the Alliance as a target of their wrath for having suffered the loss of power and most likely the deaths of millions of civilians after weeks of anarchy.

So far McMahon had some small measure of hope with his limited interactions with Degwin showing the Sovereign to bear no ill will towards Oceania or their current war against the Alliance, merely wishing for Oceania to pressure PLANT to enter into negotiations and sue for a just peace with Zeon, with the PLANT Supreme Council thankfully being more than willing to accommodate. At the end of the day though, the future of McMahon's nation rested in the hands of a dictatorship, a form of government which in the past has been proven to be sporadic at best with their rule ranging from internal oppression to foreign conquest. While McMahon still regarded the Alliance as the greater evil, Zeon was already showing signs of Fascism and all it took was one insane monarch to transform the nation into an oppressive imperialist state.

McMahon's dark thoughts were interrupted by a new presence within his office, his Defense Secretary Laurie Tuati.

"Hello Laurie, got some good news I hope?" Asked McMahon with a small surge of cheer, rising from his desk and ending his temporary break from running the nation, leaving a plate with a half eaten ham and cheese that would be picked up by the staff later.

So far there had been nothing but good news on the military front, but with Zeon's war against ZAFT and East Asia anything could be expected. While McMahon didn't expect to wake up one morning and find something horrible like Sidney being nuked by the Zeon, the recent deployment of a couple hundred of their ships to Earth orbit was a worrying sign.

Tuati sent McMahon a smile to assure him that everything was alright, "We just received word from General Harkon that the last of Operation Typhoon is a success. Palau is ours and with it the Alliance has been completely cut off from the deep Pacific in the Eastern hemisphere. As of now our part in the war is over."

McMahon's previous somber mood was erased with a sense of jubilation rising through the President. "About damn time! So long as our friends upstairs don't screw things up and keep the peace then we'll be the new masters of the Pacific and those Imperialist bastards will finally have to acknowledge our place at the table. Casualties weren't too bad I hope?"

Tuati shook her head. "Three dead and 29 wounded but in return we took out 73 Atlanteans with a further 117 of them being wounded. Once the airport was secure the island surrendered. Admiral Campbell wants to know if the Navy's going to stop operations and focus on building the Driver with ZAFT or if you want to keep going hunting."

McMahon rested his chin in his hand for half a minute in contemplation. While killing more Alliance ships was always a good thing, with half of the AF's Pacific fleet at the bottom of the ocean along with a third of East Asia's and 10% of Eurasia's, there was no need to continue the fight now that Oceania had accomplished its territorial objectives and time was running out with the recently agreed cease fire. They could instead devote their time and energy to building the Carpentera Mass Driver, finally granting Oceania spacefaring capability through sharing the base with ZAFT and allowing them to receive resources from PLANT and vice versa.

"For now it would be best to keep our fleets in port and not stretch ourselves thin in case Zeon decides to head to Earth. However we should have the Air Force do continual reconnaisance of the Pacific with the network and be on the lookout for any big catches left in the sea. If any Alliance ships come within 100 klicks of our waters, then we'll hunt them, if not let them be." McMahon decided, with Tuati nodding in approval. "Is Kwame still dead set on going for the Suez?" McMahon asked, with Tuati releasing a frustrated sigh that more than answered his question.

"The bastard is too damn stubborn and won't listen to a single word State or ZAFT says. According to Warren, the man believes that unless he takes the Suez that it'll be a bargaining chip that PLANT is willing to let Eurasia keep instead of giving it to Africa as they promised. If they don't get the Suez and Sinai, and maybe somehow make advances into the Holy Land and Arabia, then there'll be a possibility of Eurasia getting a white peace thanks to our newborn Fascist wildcard. So, to better play safe with sorry he's going through the attack. Most likely it'll start either tomorrow or the 10th. Some of his generals are trying to get him to see reason but the man won't budge despite the fact he won't get farther than Gaza by the time the ceasefire hits."

McMahon shook his head with great disapproval, "Idiot. If one of Eurasia's most elite field armies stands firm then the Alliance will get a final victory for the talks. When that happens those suicidal scumbags will believe they can still keep up the fight, and maybe Zeon will believe they can do so and support them. I wish I could beat some damned sense into him."

"If you did so Owen then he'd play the victim card and say it's another example of a white power abusing their African ally." Tuati said, with Owen rolling his eyes in response.

While Oceania entered the war for support of the Coordinator's right to live, the African Community's reasons for entering were purely for self-interest as they sought to dismantle Eurasia's presence in the Mediterranean and Middle East along with hopefully annexing most of South Africa to set the stage for the Community's rule of a united continent. As the nation who got shafted the most from the Reconstruction War, the African Community had developed a high isolationist, or as some would say xenophobic mindset with the rest of the world, especially the West, being its enemies that sought to oppress the continent. While Owen would never deny the crimes of the Alliance towards the Community, the problem was that it was still holding onto its old prejudices and treating its allies with contempt. If it weren't for its enormous manpower and rich resources than PLANT would most likely not get Africa involved, especially since large stretches of the Community still outlawed Coordination.

"The nerve of those people, they think we're only slightly better than the Alliance yet they demand that we whip up a dozen divisions and send them over to fight their part of the war." McMahon grunted. While he was amenable to the formation of an expeditionary corps, such an outfit would take a couple of months to prepare and had to be done after the Pacific was secured, and yet President Kwame Bujine demanded that they send over a fleet and expeditionary corps to take part in their offensive with only less than a week until the cease fire, as if he could organize such a transfer of men and materials in such a short timeframe.

"It's only for another month or two that we have to hold up with them. Once the Alliance surrenders then we can let them play Kingdom in their corner of the world while we rule the waves and spread across the stars alongside PLANT." Tuati reasoned, with McMahon nodding in response. While Zeon's sudden appearance in Lagrange 2 complicated affairs, it didn't change that at the end of the day the Alliance was crippled and fighting a hopeless war while ZAFT and her allies were unmolested. Since Zeon were Nationalists in support of space independence, they would hopefully ally themselves with PLANT, thus allowing Oceania to climb up on top with the winners and in the aftermath ingratiate themselves with their new neighbors, authoritarian tendencies aside.

Wanting to work on defense in more detail, McMahon began to exit his office with Tuati following him. Just as he was about to leave however, a voice on the television had caught his attention.

McMahon stepped back and walked towards the plasma screen. On it was the coverage from the OCB on his main political rival, Senator John Edelston of the Liberals. He appeared to be given an interview in the midst of the crowd of protesters, his navy blue three piece suit in heavy contrast with the relaxed clothing of the mostly blue collar protesters.

"Nearly two centuries ago my great, great, great grandfather served Queen and country and took a stand against the evils of Fascism. When the Empire of Japan sought to dominate the Pacific and enslave and conquer its neighbors, my ancestor did his part in defending Democracy and slaying the evil Axis. It was a glorious moment in history for what was to become our beloved Oceania. A time when the great nations of Australia, New Zealand, and Papau New Guinea played their roles in saving the human race from tyranny and genocide. Ever since then our land has been on a path of liberty with our nation being a shining beacon of hope and stability during the dark transition from Anno Domini to Cosmic Era.

Our nation can no longer claim to be a benevolent liberal democracy, for the past week our villain of a President has manipulated a majority of Congress to go to war without the people's consent or knowledge, to begin a war of conquest against our neighbors while our now supposed "enemies" suffer genocide with their lands under devastation from superweapons of "our allies", in a war that we had no justifiable casus belli to enter. If you believe this sounds familiar it is because ladies and gentlemen, we have overnight become the very same Fascist state that our ancestors fought and bled to destroy two centuries ago. We thought that we had fought the good fight and had destroyed Fascist Imperialism, when the corrupt swamp of Canberra has become such a wicked evil. Ladies and gentlemen, we are Imperial Japan, we are Fascist Italy, we are Nazi Germany. Until such a time that the tyrannical Owen Regime steps down and a new government backs us out of this unjust war of aggression, then the Oceania we have known and loved is dead."

**A/N: In the first chapter of the reaction arc we get a look at how ZAFT is dealing with the aftermath of their portion of the First Contact War with Zeon, and a look into the governments of Oceania and Africa and how they're dealing with the war and why they got into it. With PLANT I wanted to show how they acknowledged their mistakes and now that the threat of annihilation isn't hanging above them, they're moving forward with cooler heads. For the immediate future the council is going to be more united and while there is grumbling at the current state of affairs, the council knows it messed up and must atone for its mistake. Also for those wondering why Patrick wasn't screaming bloody murder, it's because at that point his rationality is still mostly present, and being the head of ZAFT and historian that he is, knows that ZAFT is in no position to fight against Zeon, so he must make do with an honorable peace at this point.**

**Then we get into the bread and butter of the chapter and one of my favorites of Cosmic Crusade so far, an insight into Africa and Oceania, ZAFT's Natural Allies on Earth who despite the incredible story potential they present, get completely neglected in favor of rehashing the OYW narrative of UC. This also sadly applies to fanfics as well with only Delkatar bothering to do any exploration into them with his SI. For the African Community, they are a pretty interesting case as in my interpretation they came out as a nation that suffered heavily in the Reconstruction War and despite the unification, continued to suffer from neocolonialism of the West and East Asia. The Community is a heavily nationalistic state that is centered around Pan-Africanism with a distrust for outsiders, with their alliance with PLANT being primarily one of convenience to strike down the Alliance and help in their rise to power. However, a majority of the Community is socially conservative and thus heavily opposed to Coordination, making for an interesting partnership as ZAFT is now allied with a nation that hates the Alliance yet is also weary of their existence.**

**For Oceania, their reasons are more noble as the nation has legalized Coordination and on paper is majority favorable to PLANT with them wanting to see the colonies gain independence and be treated with respect. However, these sympathies didn't go far enough for the nation to be fully willing to head to war with the Alliance, thus prompting massive protests and allegation of warmongering with Blue Cosmos elements only being a minority of the opposition. Oceania's reasons also aren't entirely pure as a big driver behind their entry was to dominate the Pacific with the move being done with an incredible amount of secrecy in the Congress, making the people more hostile to the move as being corrupt jingoism rather than pure intentions. Think of Oceania basically as 2003 Britain with Iraq.**

**Next chapter will focus on a few of the battles on Earth that took place between Uroboros and Heliopolis with a few major butterflies spreading. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!**


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